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ONLY DEBORAH DAVIS HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO SEE HER. 



MARGERY MORRIS 
IN 

THE PINE WOODS 

By 

VIOLET GORDON GRAY 

Author of ** Margery Morris” 

” Margery Morris, Mascot” 

” Margery Morris and Plain Jane” 

” Margery Morris in the Pine Woods” 


Illustrated by 

ISABEL W. CALEY 


THE PENN PUBLISHING 
COMPANY PHILADELPHIA 

1921 



COPYRIGHT 
1931 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 



Margery Morris in the Pine Woods 





DEC -8 1821 


©CLA653015 

I 




V 

i 

't Introduction 

V 

V 

The first book of this set, “ Margery 
Morris,” told of a young girl who lived in a 
quaint, old Quaker town in New Jersey, of 
the friends she made, of the fun and mishaps 
she had, and the great surprise which came to 
her at the end. 

The second book, “ Margery Morris, Mas- 
cot,” tells of the winter and spring following 
the events in the first book. Margery wanted 
to do something useful; in fact, she wanted a 
career, and decided upon the unassuming one 
of “ mascot ” so that she might bring all the 
happiness she could to the lives of others. 
Unfortunately, this was not such an easy 
thing to do, and her good intentions very 
often brought embarrassment and difficulty. 
She continued to try, however, until when she 
was about ready to give away to despair a 
final resolution to play the game brought suc- 
cess and happiness once more. 

The third book, “ Margery Morris and 
Plain Jane,” relates Margery’s experiences 
3 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


while spending the summer at the beautiful 
resort of Wyanoke, where she lived a very 
happy and wholesome out-of-door life, sur- 
rounded by her friends. Among these is a new 
friend, Jane Gale or “Plain Jane” as she 
calls herself, who has suffered from a keen 
disappointment. Margery helps her to a 
more normal view of life, but when the 
shadow of tragedy creeps near them, they 
both learn some truths and a new peace and 
happiness. 

“ Margery Morris in the Pine Woods ” 
deals particularly with Margery’s recovery 
from a serious illness, and the manner in 
which she employed her time while recuperat- 
ing in the Pine Woods. She thought she 
knew what it was to be an American, but she 
found a greater and broader meaning while 
teaching citizenship to the children of that 
out-of-the-way spot. 


Contents 


1. 

Christmas Greens 



9 

IL 

In the Pine Woods . 



3^5 

III. 

Christmas Plans 



36 

IV. 

Christmas Eve . 



55 

V. 

The Ice Storm . 



82 

VI. 

The Spring Thaw 



94 

VII. 

Pine-Trees and Shady Paths 


106 

VIII. 

Discouragement 



119 

IX. 

Letters 



135 

X. 

Stumbling-Blocks and 

Stepping- 



Stones . 



145 

XI. 

Plans 



157 

XII. 

The Schoolhouse 



170 

XIII. 

Transplanting . 



182 

XIV. 

Pearls 



197 

XV. 

The Bucci Family 



211 

XVI. 

The Surprise 



231 

XVII. 

Historic Shrines 



252 

XVIII. 

Little Lucy 



261 

XIX. 

The Search 



278 

XX. 

Through the Woods 



295 

XXL 

The Empty Hut 



305 

XXII. 

Lost .... 



312 

XXIII. 

The Last Evening . 



327 


5 



1 

1 

) 

k 


I 


I 



Illustrations 


PAGE 

Only Deborah Davis Had Been Allowed 

TO See Her • . . . . Frontispiece 

The Eager Children Began to Arrive . . 63 

It Was Cooler Here and Peaceful . . 140 

The Girls Ran Down the Platform to Meet 

Jane 240 

The Old White Boat Was Laden With 

Boys and Girls 327 


Margery Morrig in the Pine Woods 


7 


Margery Morris in the 
Pine Woods 


CHAPTER I 

CHRISTMAS GREENS 

In a group of tall trees by the roadside the 
crows flocked, black against a cloudless, ice- 
blue sky. Beyond the dull gray fences where 
the bittersweet still wreathed its orange-red 
berries, the fields stretched brown and sere to 
the distant pine-forest. 

“ How wintry and cold those crows sound,’’ 
said Margery Morris, drawing the fur collar of 
her coat closer around her throat. “ Hear 
them ? Caw ! Caw ! ” 

“ It is cold,” admitted Dick Ball, thrusting 
his feet deeper into the straw that filled the 
bottom of the little motor-truck. “ It will be 
warmer when we get into the woods and away 
from this wind. Turn down the first lane to 
the right, Mr. Morris,” he called to Margery’s 
9 


10 


MARGERY MORRIS 


father at the wheel. “ That will bring us into 
the barrens sooner.” 

“ All right, boss,” answered big, boyish Mr. 
Morris, “ I'll take your word for it.” 

Mrs. Morris, sitting beside her husband, 
turned her charming head and looked back at 
the young people crouched in the bottom of 
the little motor-truck used at the White House 
Farm to carry supplies to and from the town. 
It was five days before Christmas and they 
were going into that great stretch of the pine- 
forest known as the barrens to gather Christ- 
mas greens. The three girls, Margery and her 
chums, Polly Jameson and Esther Crowell, 
had been up since a little after the wintry 
dawn, making sandwiches and packing tea- 
baskets, for they were to build a camp-fire and 
have their luncheon deep in the woods. The 
boys, Sam Bennet and Dick, had newly sharp- 
ened axes and knives, and Dick had even bor- 
rowed a pair of linesman’s creepers from the 
electric light station in the hope that at the top 
of some ancient black-gum tree he might spy 
the white berries and silvery gray leaves of the 
mistletoe. There were all kinds of Christmas 
treasures to be found in the barrens: mistletoe 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


11 


and laurel; juniper and the trailing ground- 
pine and scarlet holly; the crimson fruits of 
ilex and black alder, and the flaming beads of 
the winterberry, partridge and teaberries, 
wine-red and coral. 

Margery took off her big scarlet tam-o’- 
shanter and settled it more securely on her 
blond curls. “ See those juncos, Mother? ” 
she called, leaning forward to draw her 
mother’s attention to a flock of slate-colored 
birds that with a crisp, frosty ’tsip call of alarm, 
rose from a clump of small cedars. 

Mrs. Morris nodded rather absently. She 
was thinking of the radiantly happy and 
healthy appearance of the boys and girls. The 
keen wind had stung Margery’s cheeks to as 
gay a red as her tam-o’-shanter; Esther, always 
round and rosy, had found in one of the famous 
camphor- wood chests of her great-grandmother 
an old-fashioned quilted sleighing hood that 
turned her into the most delightful of little old 
ladies ; while Polly, always fine-looking in her 
individual fashion, was characteristically stun- 
ning in a great brown mackinaw and close 
brown cap that matched in color her big, in- 
telligent brown eyes. 


12 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ They seem so happy,” Mrs. Morris said 
softly to her husband, “ that one feels as though 
they never could be burdened by sorrow and 
care and ill-health. Yet we know it must come 
sometime to some of them, if not to all. If 
there were only some way to shield them,” she 
added with a sigh. 

Mr. Morris slowed down the car and glanced 
over his shoulder at his beloved little daughter 
and at Dick sitting beside her, big and blond 
and self-reliant. “ Those broad shoulders of 
Dick’s,” he said, “ look as though they could 
carry pretty heavy burdens. And as for Mar- 
gery! — well, she has plenty of grit to help her 
along! And Sam,” turning further to glance 
at Sam crouched on the other side of Margery, 
“ will always be a cheerful soul, I imagine, 
blundering into one scrape after another, but 
as cheerful and cherubic and apple-cheeked at 
forty as he is now.” He looked at his pretty 
young wife, whose perplexities and doubts and 
enthusiasms always amused him, and laughed. 
“ So don’t begin to worry about the future of 
these young people just yet,” he said. ‘‘ You’ll 
have another problem to meet before that, a 
pressing one. That is: how are we going to be 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


13 


able to cook enough over a camp-fire to feed all 
those hungry young ravens? Sam looks as 
though he could eat the entire contents of the 
lunch-basket — and this air has made me as 
hungry as a hunter/’ 

The narrow road grew sandy and crept in 
among the scrub-oaks, low cedars and dwarf 
pitch-pines that marked the outer portions of 
the pine-barrens. At the sound of the car 
there was a whirring of wings and the juncos 
and pine-siskins, chickadees and cedar wax- 
wings that had been feasting on the red berries 
of the dog^vood and dwarf sumac, rose with 
startled cries and flew off. 

“ The birds are getting their Christmas din- 
ner when they can,” remarked Dick; “if a 
heavy snow should come they wouldn’t have 
such an easy time.” 

“ Oh, look, Dick,” cried Margery, her eyes 
big with disappointment, “ look, the frost has 
spoiled all the holly — see how horrid and black 
it is!” 

The others laughed. “ You’re a fine coun- 
try girl,” declared Dick, delighted to have 
found a fresh subject with which to tease Mar- 
gery. “ That isn’t holly — that’s inkberry. It 


14 


MARGERY MORRIS 


always looks that way. It’s a poor relation of 
the holly. You used to want a career — there’s 
one for you. We’ll make you a naturalist.” 

Margery was too used to Dick’s teasing to 
pay any attention to it. “All right,” she said 
resignedly. “ I’ll be a naturalist or anything 
else you may select, just so long as it isn’t a 
mascot.” 

The character of the woods began to change; 
the dwarf pitch-pines and lowly scrub-oaks 
gave way to tall silver-maples, great oaks 
and cedars, and yellow pines, and here and 
there in the swampy places a giant black-gum 
reared its ancient branches. Dick eagerly 
scanned the upper limbs in search of mistle- 
toe. 

Deeper and deeper into the forest wound 
the narrow sandy road; sheltered from the keen 
wind it seemed warmer and the air was fra- 
grant with the aromatic breath of the pines and 
cedars. Except for the cries of the birds and 
the musical soughing of the pine-trees there 
was no sound. 

“ There is fine holly,” said Mr. Morris and 
pointing to a thicket where brilliant-berried 
holly and glossy-leaved laurel grew together. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


15 


“ Pile out, kids, and get to work. There’s all 
the ground-pine you can want over there 
among those pines, too.” 

“Did you ever see such treasures?” cried 
Polly, as she jmnped down from the truck. 
“ There’s holly and laurel and ground-pine ! 
Dick, do lend me that axe! And look, Mar- 
gery, in that ring of pines, see, where the white 
sand is ! Aren’t all those creeping vines 
pretty? ” 

Brandishing her axe, Polly ran to the clear- 
ing, where she began to cut great branches of 
holly, bravely disregarding the sharp spikes 
that pierced her woollen gloves. 

Margery, humming cheerfully to herself, 
wandered away to a little clearing where the 
ground-pine and partridgeberry grew. She 
felt very happy there in the silent woods. Get- 
ting her fingers under the roots and stems of 
the ground-pine she pulled carefully, and 
brought up a great chain of it some eight feet 
long. Still humming, she knocked off the 
black leaf-mold with its clean earthy smell that 
clung to the tiny stems and roots. 

“ This will be perfect to put around the fire- 
places for my party,” she thought, bending 


16 


MARGERY MORRIS 


over to pull up another long strand. She was 
to have a dance on Christmas night, when her 
grandfather’s country home with its big hospi- 
table rooms was to be thrown open to the boys 
and girls of Renwyck’s Town. With the ex- 
ception of the party, Christmas at the White 
House Farm was to be very simple, for it was 
the first year of the war, and Mr. and Mrs. 
Morris had decided that all their money and 
energy must be spent in answer to the call for 
relief that came from suffering Belgium and 
France. 

Looping the ground-pine over her arm, she 
turned back and began to pick clusters of the 
gay little red partridgeberries shining amid 
their round bright green leaves. 

Through the trees she could see her mother’s 
fur toque and coat, and Polly’s brown mack- 
inaw, and half eager to show the others her 
treasures, half reluctant to leave the solitude of 
the little clearing, she made her way toward 
them. 

She found them standing at the edge of a 
fairy ring of tall yellow pines thai: clustered 
about the patch of shining white sand. They 
were watching with amusement a chattering 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


17 


red squirrel that, perched on the branch of a 
tree, was busily shredding a pine-cone. 

“ Shh,” whispered Mrs. Morris. “ Isn’t it 
fun to watch him? ” 

Margery slipped her arm through Polly’s 
and they stood silently looking at the pretty 
little animal until Esther and the boys, bearing 
great branches of pine and laurel, came laugh- 
ing and talking to the edge of the sandy circle, 
and the squirrel darted up the tree and disap- 
peared among the upper branches. 

“ Hear the wind in the pine-trees, isn’t it 
perfect? ” remarked Polly, looking up at the 
great trees. “ If I were a millionaire, instead 
of having exactly fourteen dollars and fifty- 
three cents to my name, I’d build a house in 
the woods and I’d call it ‘ Forest Murmurs.’ 
I think they are the most beautiful words in the 
English language.” 

“ I think ‘ Running Waters ’ are prettier,” 
declared Margery, her eyes on the little cedar- 
water stream that slipped silently along its 
sandy bed beyond the edge of the pine-cluster. 

“ Some Frenchman said ‘ cellar-door ’ is the 
most beautiful word in the English language,” 
remarked Esther. ‘‘ It is beautiful if you just 


18 


MARGERY MORRIS 


listen to the sound, and don’t stop to think of 
the meaning.” 

“ ‘ Dinner time ’ is the most beautiful pair of 
words to me,” suggested Sam. 

“ You’re right, Sam,” agreed Mr. Morris, 
who had come up back of them- “ That is the 
way I feel at this present moment. And I 
don’t think we could find a better place for 
our camp-fire than just this sand-wash with 
its good dry sand. We can get all the water 
we want from that little stream. Spread out 
your rugs, Margery-Pargery-Pudding-and- 
Pie. Come on, Dick, let’s start the fire. Some 
of that old fallen pine over there ought to 
make good fire-wood. Go to it with your axe ! 
Come on, everybody — wake up, and get to 
work ! Don’t stand dreaming there, Margery 
Daw! Wake up and hear the birdies sing! ” 

IMargery disrespectfully aimed a pine-cone 
at her father which hit Esther, who was back 
of her, instead, and laughing and chattering, 
the girls brought the rugs from the car and 
spread them out on the dry white sand, and 
opened up the lunch-baskets, while Dick 
chopped at the pine-stump, and Mr. Morris and 
Sam brought dead branches of laurel and some 


IN THE PINE WOODS 19 

blueberry bushes, both of which bum with a 
fierce heat. 

“ Now then, Margery and Esther,” com- 
manded Mr. Morris, as Dick heaped up the 
pine-wood beside the laurel branches, “ we are 
all ready, except for some dead leaves, and 
some super-dry pine-needles.” 

Over the heap of dead leaves and pine- 
needles which the girls brought, Dick built a 
little tent of blueberry twigs, then on top of 
that laid the laurel and berry bushes. “ Fire’s 
all ready to light,” he announced. 

“We ought to have rubbed two sticks to- 
gether, Indian fashion,” remarked Mr. Morris, 
as he started the fire and the dead leaves and 
laurel branches blazed up quickly. “ Now 
then, Dick, where are your pieces of pine- 
stump? ” 

As the pine-stump burned with a dull-red, 
intense glow, Margery carefully placed the 
picnic-rack, an iron gridiron with four strong 
legs, over the fire and balanced the coffee-pot 
on it. 

“ Isn’t it wonderful,” laughed Mrs. Morris 
as she fastened a sausage on the end of a stick 
and stuck it into the glowing embers, “how 


20 


MARGERY MORRIS 


delicious food cooked and eaten out of doors 
is? Imagine our eating such a meal as this 
at home! Oh, there goes my sausage — right 
off the stick into the fire! ” 

Margery hastily put down the can of con- 
densed milk, and with another stick tried to 
rescue the sausage. 

“ It’s burnt to a flinder,” she wailed at last, 
backing off with scarlet face and smoke-filled 
eyes. “And we simply can’t afford to lose one 
single sausage, either! Gracious, isn’t it hot 
by this fire? No one would ever think it was 
December! Oh, look, Dick,” waving her arm 
in the direction of a downy little black and 
gray bird clinging upside down to the tip of 
a pine-branch. “ Look, there’s a chickadee! ” 

The little bird twirled itself over like an 
acrobat, perched right side up on the end of an 
outstretched twig, and called in clear, twinkling 
notes, “ Chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee! ” 

Dick, scorching himself over the fire, rescued 
the coffee-pot from upsetting, and glanced up. 
“ Yes, it’s a chickadee,” he said. “ There are 
probably more in the trees. They are inquisi- 
tive little chaps. Perhaps I can bring some 
more to view.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


21 


Putting the coffee-pot carefully back on the 
fire, he began to whistle, “ Chick-a-dee, chick-a- 
dee-dee.” 

The little bird hopped to a nearer branch. 
“ Chick-a-dee, chick-a-dee-dee,” whistled Dick 
again. 

There was a fluttering in the nearest pine 
and two more little black and gray birds ap- 
peared. “ See,” said Dick triumphantly. 

“ Oh, how interesting, Dick,” cried Mrs. 
Morris. “ I wish I could know half what you 
do about the birds and trees and flowers. In 
the meantime, while I am learning, I’ll tell you 
that I do know something else. It’s a Christ- 
mas secret that may or may not come true.” 

“ Oh, Mother! What? ” cried Margery. 

Mrs. Morris shook her head. “ I can’t tell,” 
she insisted. “ I don’t even know myself 
whether it will come true or not.” 

“ But tell us — tell us ! ” demanded the boys 
and girls. 

But Mrs. Morris only laughed. “ Oh, no, 
I can’t.” 

“ When will you know? ” persisted Margery. 
“You might tell us that much! Please, 
Mother, do.” 


22 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Her mother obdurate, Margery turned to 
her father. “ Now, Papa, you know. I’m 
sure you do. You look so guilty.” 

Mr. Morris laughed, that big, booming, boy- 
ish laugh that helped to make him so popular 
with the boys and girls. “ I simply wouldn’t 
dare to tell you — even if I happened to know. 
Think what your mother might do to me. 
Look at that bird,” pointing to a nuthatch 
running down the trunk of a tree head fore- 
most. “ Look at that pine-needle Polly is 
about to swallow with the piece of fudge she 
is eating. Look at anything that will distract 
your attention and keep you from asking your 
aged parent questions.” 

The last crumbs of the walnut-cake Esther 
had brought were eaten, the spoons had been 
washed in the little stream, and the wooden 
picnic plates had been fed into the fire, but still 
the little party sat grouped about the glowing 
embers. There in the sand-wash, sheltered 
from the winter wind by the tall, whispering 
pines, shone on by the winter sunshine and 
warmed by the fire, they were too comfortable 
to think just yet of moving on. Beyond the 
circle of pines stretched the forest, with here 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


23 


and there in the open spaces, where some great 
tree had fallen, clumps of laurel and holly, and 
along the little brook, scarlet-berried alder. 

‘‘ Can’t you just imagine that the wind in 
the pine-trees is the sound of the ocean,” said 
Polly, closing her eyes and leaning back 
luxuriously against Margery. 

“ There is an old Indian legend,” said Dick, 
“ that when the ocean receded after having 
been all over the earth, the mountains felt so 
lonely that they asked the Great Spirit to send 
them back the waters. As that couldn’t be 
done, the pine-trees were sent to them to sound 
like the ocean and so bring them comfort.” 

“ I’d like to spend the rest of the day here,” 
said Mr. Morris, “ but I suppose that if we 
are going to look for mistletoe we must be on 
our way. Get some water, boys, and we’ll put 
out this fire.” 

“ Now, Papa,” ordered Margery, as the boys 
threw water on the fire, “ when we get started 
again we must keep right on until we find a 
balsam fir for our Christmas tree.” 

Mr. Morris and Dick laughed. 

“What’s the joke?” Margery demanded. 
“ I don’t see anything to laugh at.” 


24 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ You’ve set your father a good long ride, 
and a cold one,” Dick explained. “ Balsams 
don’t grow here — they grow up in the New 
England mountains, and other places pretty 
far north.” 

“ Oh, dear,” cried Margery, disappointed, 
‘‘ what can we get then? ” 

“ Pines, cedars and hemlocks.” 

“ Never mind, Snooks,” consoled her father. 
“ I’ve already ordered the finest balsam that 
shall come to town to be saved for us.” 

“ I want to get a tiny pine-tree,” said Mrs. 
Morris, “ for the dining-room table.” 

“ I want a baby cedar-tree,” declared Polly. 
“ It comes already trimmed with cedar-berries. 
That’s a thrifty thought when you are giving 
your last cent to the Belgians. And I have to 
have something to console me while I wait for 
Mrs. Morris to tell the Christmas secret.” 


CHAPTER II 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

f 

Deeper and deeper into the still, mysterious 
forest went the happy little party, until at 
length the road skirted the head of a sombre, 
silent swamp where the great-holed, black gum 
trees lifted their branches. Suddenly there 
was a clear, wild whistle, followed by a flash 
through the alders, and a cardinal grosbeak, 
like a flame of scarlet, shot down from a tall 
tree to a tangle of greenbrier. 

“ liook,” cried Margery, as her eyes fol- 
lowed the bird’s flight. “ Look, what’s that? 
It looks white. See, some bird has lined its 
nest with white feathers.” 

“ Look again,” cried Dick, excitedly. “ It’s 
mistletoe. See — there are the tiny green leaves 
and the white berries. I’m going up after it.” 

Mrs. Morris demurred when she saw how 
high above the ground the mistletoe was grow- 
ing, but Dick fastened on his linesman’s creep- 
26 


26 


MARGERY MORRIS 


ers and began the climb up the straight old 
tree-trunk. 

“ Look out,” he cried from the top, “ I’m 
going to throw it down. It’s a big bunch.” 

There was a rustling and the mistletoe fell 
at Margery’s feet. “ Oh, Mother,” she cried, 
as she picked it up, “ think of being able to pick 
our own holly and mistletoe! What lots of 
fun people miss when they just buy things in 
stores, instead of getting them for themselves.” 

After Dick came down from his tree-top, 
they scattered around the edge of the swamp 
in search of more mistletoe. Slowly the sun 
began to fade and the sky that had showed so 
brilliantly blue between the tall trees turned 
gray. 

“ Don’t you think, dear,” suggested Mrs. 
Morris as her husband came back to the truck 
with a fresh load of holly in his arms, “ that it 
is getting rather late? Remember, darkness 
comes down early these December afternoons — 
especially in this dense forest. Wouldn’t we 
better be starting for home? ” 

Mr. Morris cocked his head and looked at 
the sky. “ Hmm,” he answered, “ it does look 
a little like snow. And we have a pretty long 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


27 


way to go. Well, as soon as I can gather those 
youngsters together we’ll start. Dick is risk- 
ing his precious neck again for the sake of a 
piece of mistletoe, and Margery is like a rabbit 
in a patch of teaberries she has found. To tell 
the truth, if there had been many rabbits with 
her appetite for teaberries, she wouldn’t be 
finding so many now.” 

“ Oh, do get her,” cried Margery’s mother 
anxiously. “ I ate too many teaberries once 
when I was a child, and I can remember yet 
how ill I was.” 

Mr. Morris laughed and disappeared 
through a thicket of laurel. Margery he 
found on her knees in a little patch of gray- 
green reindeer moss, that was flecked by the 
crimson fruit and bronzed leaves of the tea- 
berries. Her father paused to watch her and 
to think with pardonable pride what a pretty 
picture she made with her scarlet tam-o’- 
shanter cocked on one side of her blond 
head. 

“ You look like a teaberry yourself. Angel- 
lamb,” he called. It seemed as though Mr. 
jMorris could never find enough pet names for 
his adored only daughter. Every day he in- 


28 


MARGERY MORRIS 


vented new ones, and his flights of fancy, rang- 
ing from Honey-bunch-of -onions to Moss- 
rosebud-of-my-heart, were a constant source 
of amusement to Margery’s friends. 

At her father’s summons, Margery sprang 
up and hurried to join him. “ Just look,” she 
said, showing him the big pocket of her coat. 
“ See, I have both pockets nearly full. Kiley 
told me to be sure to bring home some tea- 
berries. I think that even Kiley ought to be 
pleased.” 

Kiley, the cross old cook who ruled the 
kitchen at the White House Farm, was not an 
easy person to keep in good humor. 

Her hand tucked in her father’s, Margery 
went with him along a narrow white sand path 
to the foot of another tall gum-tree, where the 
others stood clustered watching Dick make the 
long and somewhat perilous descent from its 
upper branches. “ Look,” said Polly, picking 
up a big bunch of mistletoe, “isn’t this an- 
other beauty? ” 

The truck was so full now with the little 
pine and cedar-trees and branches of pine and 
holly and mistletoe, as well as bay and laurel 
and the long ropes of ground-pine, that the 


IN THE PINE WOODS 29 

young people found some trouble in tucking 
themselves in. 

“And once having gotten ourselves in,” 
laughed Margery as they were settled at last 
and Mr. Morris had cranked the car, “ the 
problem will be — ^how are we ever to get our- 
selves out? Dick, no matter what marvel of 
an Indian relic you may happen to see for your 
collection, you are not to get out and get it. 
If you do you’ll just have to run along behind 
the truck like a little dog, for we never could 
make room in here for you again.” 

“ Yes, ma’am. Just as you say, ma’am. 
Thank you, ma’am,” murmured Dick with 
ostentatious meekness. “ Very soon it will be 
too dark for me to see anything at all, ma’am.” 

“ Sing, you children,” ordered Mr. Morris, 
as he guided the car carefully over the long 
tree roots that ridged the sandy road and made 
it rough. 

Obediently, Margery began “ Twickenham 
Ferry,” the song that they had all sung so 
much the summer before, and the others joined 
in. The “ Spanish Cavalier ” and all the other 
old favorites followed, and then, very softly, 
Esther started “ It’s a long way to Tipperary.” 


30 


MARGERY MORRIS 


After Tipperary they all were silent. It 
was the first year of the war, and the song 
meant a good deal to them just then. Dick 
and Sam were thinking of the boys not much 
older than they who were going out bravely to 
the horror of the trenches, and wishing, as boys 
will, that they could go too. Mr. and Mrs. 
Morris were silent, for the war seemed very 
real and close to them. They had travelled a 
good deal in their youthful days, and they 
knew so well those little towns, once so quaint 
and charming, that had fallen under the Ger- 
man guns, and Mr. Morris, who had spent a 
year or two at an English school, had already 
lost friends who were dear to him. Margery, 
too, felt sombre, and slipped her hand into 
Esther’s red-mittened one. She was thinking 
of the French and Belgian girls, and wonder- 
ing how she would feel if she had to say good- 
bye to her father, her handsome, boyish, jolly, 
young father. Involuntarily, she glanced at 
him to assure herself that he was still there. 

The twilight deepened and the shadows of 
the tall pines grew black and mysterious. 
Without the sunshine the forest was cold and 
damp, and the wind rose, icy and cutting. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


31 


Margery shivered and crouched deeper into 
the straw Since the summer before when she 
had been nearly drowned she was susceptible 
to changes of temperature and suffered a good 
deal from the cold. Mr. Morris turned on the 
lamps of the car, and from the brilliant shaft 
of light the forest seemed to draw back, dark 
and menacing. Suddenly there came a tremolo 
cry, weird and mysterious, from the woods at 
the right. 

Margery shrieked. 

Her father threw on the brakes and stopped 
the car. “ Margery,” he expostulated, “ what 
is the matter with you? ” 

“ It’s that noise,” gasped Margery. “ Lis- 
ten!” 

Again the cry came, long, wavering, mourn- 
ful. 

Dick and Sam laughed. “ It’s only a 
screech-owl. Cheer up.” 

Mr. Morris turned the car, and the long 
shaft of light from the search-lights lit up the 
woods. On the branch of a pine-tree near by 
they could see a little reddish-brown owl with 
round, blinking, yellow eyes and tufted ears. 

“ There it is, Margery,” said her father. 


32 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“A screech-owl. Screech-owl is a poor name 
for it. It has the sweetest cry of all the night 
birds.” 

“ Not for me,” demurred Margery. “ It’s 
too weird.” 

Mr. Morris started the car again and they 
went on. The low plaintive cry followed 
them. 

“ It’s so cold,” sighed Margery wearily to 
Esther. “ I’m almost frozen. I wonder if 
we will ever get out of these lonely woods.” 

The pine-trees grew smaller at last and the 
scrub-oaks began to take their places. “ How 
strange it is,” said Mrs. Morris suddenly, 
“ that bush in front of us keeps moving. I 
don’t understand it.” 

“ Where? ” asked Mr. Morris. “ I don’t 
see any bush that’s moving.” 

“ There. In front of us to the right.” 

“ That isn’t a bush. That’s a man or boy 
carrying a tree — or some branches.” 

A few seconds brought them through the 
dusk to a boy of ten or twelve carrying a load 
of holly branches. 

At the coming of the car he had cowered 
into the bushes, plainly frightened. Mr. Mor- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


33 


ris stopped and called to him. Whimpering 
with cold and nervousness he came forward 
and said something. 

“ What? What did you say? ” asked Mr. 
Morris. 

“ He’s an Italian,” put in Margery’s mother. 
“ Perhaps I can talk to him.” 

She spoke to him in Italian. “ He says,” 
she explained, “ that he came into the woods 
to get holly to sell. He’s lost and frightened 
now, and he tried to hide from us, because he 
was afraid that we might be bad people. We 
had better take him along.” 

A place was made for the boy at her feet, 
and they started on again. Lower and lower 
grew the underbrush, and at length they were 
out of the barrens into the open country. A 
faint afterglow, dusky gold and amber, 
touched the horizon, and above it the sky was 
apple green, lighted by a little crescent moon. 
Near it, silvery gold, was Venus, the beautiful 
winter evening star. 

The road was smooth and Mr. Morris ran 
the car swiftly. 

At the first small hamlet they passed the 
Italian boy pulled at Mrs. Morris’s skirt and 


34 


MARGERY MORRIS 


asked to be let down. With amusement they 
watched him scuttle away in the direction of 
a tumble-down, little shack, too happy to get 
home to remember to say “ thank you ” or 
“ good-bye.” 

The country grew less lonely and they began 
to pass comfortable, well-lighted home- 
steads. 

“ Well,” said Esther, as they drew near a 
big farmhouse where the lights shone out 
cheerily over the road, “ I am glad to get out 
of those dark woods. They made me feel 
rather eerie.” 

“ It seems like life,” remarked Polly, who 
dearly loved to philosophize. “ We have to 
go through some dark and lonely spot now and 
then. But if we just keep on, we’re certain 
to come out into the open with the old moon 
and stars to welcome us.” 

“ Some people never get out of their woods,” 
said Mrs. Morris, turning round, “ for they 
lose courage and collapse.” 

‘‘ It seems to me,” added Dick, thought- 
fully, “ that it isn’t enough just to get your- 
self out of the woods — you ought to find some- 
thing worth while when you are in them.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


35 


‘‘ You’ve got to find holly and mistletoe, in 
fact,” put in Margery. 

“ Exactly,” cried Polly. “And you’ve got 
to have sense enough not to pick the poison- 
ous berries of discontent and envy.” 

“ You’re right, Polly,” said Mr. Morris, 
joining in the conversation. “ That’s a sensi- 
ble little head of yours. And beyond all that, 
we have to recognize that we can’t find some of 
the treasures we want without going into the 
woods for them. We have to have sorrow and 
hardship to progress to better things. Just 
as that famous prima donna lacked some qual- 
ity in her voice, which kept her from being a 
success. When she had a real sorrow, the 
missing quality grew and she achieved great 
fame.” 

“And it seems to me,” said Esther, “that 
when you are in the woods you ought to do 
some good to people. Just as Mrs. Morris 
picked up that little Italian boy.” 

“And also,” laughed Margery, forestalling 
a teasing remark she knew was trembling on 
Dick’s lips, “ you oughtn’t to get scared and 
screech at the screech-owls.” 


CHAPTER III 


CHRISTMAS PLANS 

Margery loved the big, comfortable white 
house with its stately pillared portico and long 
roomy wings where her grandfather lived. 
She had spent the previous winter there 
while her parents were travelling in Japan and 
this autumn after Mr. and Mrs. Morris’s re- 
turn they had all lived there happily together. 
But much as she loved it, it had never seemed 
so homelike or delightful as it did when the 
truck turned in at the gate and she saw the 
lights from the windows streaming out over 
the lawn and the dark box-bordered garden. 

Within doors, she knew, were roaring fires 
in the fireplaces, and in the kitchen Kiley, the 
cross old cook, would be busy preparing din- 
ner. There would be fried chicken from the 
home poultry yard, and sweet potatoes and 
crisp white celery from the garden and, per- 
haps, if Kiley were in a good humor, a black 
walnut cake from the nuts that grew on the 
36 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


37 


big tree by the garage. And after dinner 
Margery and Polly would pop corn over the 
open fire in the dining-room. 

The Christmas greens were put in the stable, 
then Mr. Morris cranked up the car again to 
take the others home and to stop in the village 
for his evening paper. Polly was to spend the 
night with Margery, as she often did, for the 
friendship between the two girls, begun over 
a year ago, had steadily grown until now they 
were almost inseparable. Arm in arm, they 
walked around the house to the front door. 
Far down the driveway close to the gate they 
could see gleaming through the dusk the red 
light at the rear of the truck. 

“ Polly, stop talking,” Margery suddenly 
commanded. “ They are singing.” 

The truck had stopped by the gate and 
across the dim lawn sounded the boyish voices, 
aided by Mr. Morris’s clear true barytone. 

** Good-night, ladies! Good-night, ladies! Good-night, 
ladies! 

WeWe going to leave you now. 

Merrily we roll along, roll along, roll along, 

Merrily we roll along, 

O^er the deep blue sea.** 


88 


MARGERY MORRIS 


The singing stopped and the truck started 
again. The girls opened the door and went in. 
Mrs. Morris was already in the library speak- 
ing to Margery’s stately white-haired grand- 
father, who sat by the fireplace, a book on his 
knee. 

Shivering a little, Margery tossed off her 
coat and tam-o’-shanter and kneeling before 
the fire held out her hands to the blaze. Her 
mother looked at her anxiously. “ Margery,” 
she said, “ I’m afraid that you were not dressed 
warmly enough to-day. You know that I told 
you to take an extra sweater.” 

“ I haven’t caught a bit of cold. Mother, 
really I haven’t,” Margery insisted. 

Nevertheless, when she and Polly went up 
to dress for dinner, Margery took down from 
the wardrobe a wine-colored velveteen trimmed 
with dark fur. 

“ What are you putting on your best dress 
for? ” asked Polly, pausing with her hair half 
plaited. “ There isn’t anybody coming this 
evening, is there? ” 

“ It’s the warmest thing I have. Besides, 
it looks cosy.” 

“ It does that,” Polly agreed. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


39 


“ Did I tell you,” asked Margery, sitting 
down on the floor to change her shoes, “ that 
this room is to be redecorated for me this 
spring? We’d have it done now if it wasn’t 
that we are afraid it might mean too many open 
doors and windows and draughts for Grand- 
papa.” 

Then you’re really going to live here, Mar- 
gie? Goodie!” 

“ Yes. Isn’t it great? It’s been decided 
that Papa will have an office in the East. Of 
course, after this winter we may live in Phila- 
delphia or New York, but anyway, it won’t 
ever be so far away from Grandpapa as it was 
before. And he really is too frail for us to 
transplant him out to California. He wouldn’t 
be happy away from here, either. This is his 
native heath.” 

Polly enjoyed dining at the White House 
Farm, especially now that Margery’s parents 
were spending the winter there. The talk that 
flew across the big candle-lit table was always 
fascinating to the bright, book-loving girl. 
But to-night the minds of the older people were 
on the war and they seemed rather depressed. 
The news in the evening paper that Mr. Morris 


40 MARGERY MORRIS 

had brought back from the village had not been 
encouraging. 

“ Dear me,” sighed Mrs. Morris, “ to think 
of all the suffering in the world this Christmas. 
I’m afraid that it will be bad enough right here 
in Renwyck’s Town.” 

The products of the factories on the out- 
skirts of the town formerly had been sold 
chiefly in Europe, and now because of condi- 
tions on the other side of the Atlantic, they 
were shut down and the workers thrown out 
of employment. With Polly’s mother and sev- 
eral others of the Renwyck’s Town women, 
Mrs. Morris had been working hard to provide 
for the unfortunate families. 

“ It will be hard on the kiddies,” said Polly, 
who was especially fond of children. “ I wish 
that we could have one big Christmas tree and 
invite them all.” 

“ You can.” 

“ How, Mother? ” asked Margery. 

“A ‘ tree of light.’ Just as they are having 
illuminated Christmas trees, or ‘ trees of light,’ 
in New York and other cities and towns. We 
might have that great big spruce tree in the 
Market Square strung with electric lights and 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


41 


have it lighted on Christmas Eve and have 
someone to sing old Christmas songs,” cried 
Mrs. Morris, enthusiastic at once about any- 
thing that would help others. 

Mr. Morris, who often had to restrain his 
wife’s enthusiasms, asked, “ Who will sing? 
If you are thinking of rigging me up in green 
tights and a red nose in imitation of an Old 
English waiter, please consider that I have al- 
ready declined! ” 

Mrs. Morris laughed. “ Yes, I’m afraid 
we’ll be depending on a broken reed if we look 
to you.” 

“ I’ll sing,” volunteered Margery. 

“ You, you blessed little pumpkin pie, why, 
your little pipe couldn’t be heard ten feet,” ex- 
claimed her father laughing, flipping a salted 
almond across the table at her. 

Mrs. Morris put out her hand. “ Harry,” 
she protested, “ how can I bring Margery up 
properly when you do such things? ” 

“ Never mind. Mother,” said Margery tran- 
quilly, “ he hasn’t succeeded in spoiling me yet. 
Think what a model of behavior I am. Now 
as to the singing. Polly will help me, and we’ll 
get Dick and Sam and Esther, and Sally and 


42 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Billy and — and all the others. And you can 
help too. We’ll get up a choir.” 

“ Yes, you can do that,” agreed her father. 

Mrs. Morris was delighted. “ That’s just 
the idea — ^we’ll get all the young people to sing. 
We’ll have to work hard to learn anything by 
Christmas, but still it can be done. And I 
wasn’t going to tell you my Christmas sur- 
prise just yet, but I believe I will. I have 
asked the Watkins to come with Jane and 
Marion and the three boys to spend Christmas 
with us. I’ve had a good deal of correspond- 
ence about it, and to-day when I came back 
from the woods I found a telegram from Mrs. 
Watkins saying that they can come. Jack and 
Perry have good voices and their singing will 
be a great help.” 

“ Oh! ” cried Polly. “ Jane and Perry and 
J ack here ! Did you ever hear of anything so 
perfect? ” 

Margery sank back in her chair and gazed at 
her mother. “ Mother, how did you manage 
to think of anything so wonderful? You’re 
the most perfect little mother.” 

Margery had spent the summer at Wyanoke, 
on the New England coast, where her grand- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


43 


father had rented a cottage for the season. 
There she had met Jane Gale and her step- 
brothers, Perry and Jack Watkins, and had 
helped Jane to become reconciled to the step- 
father and brothers whom she had resented so 
bitterly at the beginning of the summer. 
There, too, tragedy had come very close to 
Margery; caught out at sea in an open boat 
she had been rescued just in time, while the 
girl with her was lost. To Perry Watkins 
she owed her life, for it was his courage and 
strength that had kept her struggling in the 
cold, storm-swept ocean until help had arrived. 

‘‘ Mayn’t we begin practising the carols to- 
night? ” asked Margery as she rose from the 
table. 

“No, honey,” answered her mother. “We’re 
all too sleepy after our day in the woods. Do 
you know,” looking out of the window, “ it’s 
beginning to snow ! ” 

It was still snowing the next morning when 
they all went into the village to service in the 
quaint old church of St. Peter’s. There after 
church Margery and Polly had an opportunity 
to speak to Dick and explain the plan to him. 
He was enthusiastic and promised to get into 


44 


MARGERY MORRIS 


touch with some of the boys whom Margery 
felt she did not know well enough to invite. 

“And shall I come out later this afternoon 
then? ” asked Polly as she got out of the car 
with her bag at the door of her comfortable 
old brick home that stood with other old-fash- 
ioned houses in one of the quiet streets of 
Renwyck’s Town. 

“ I won’t be much help in the singing line,” 
Polly’s tunelessness was a favorite joke, “ but 
I’ll help along in the enthusiasm.” 

After dinner Margery went into the little 
study at the back of the house, where her grand- 
father’s collection of Indian relics was kept. 
Because of the war and the fact that the Mor- 
rises were giving so largely to the needy everj’^- 
where it had been decided that they should 
give in the family only simple home-made pres- 
ents. For her grandfather, Margery was 
making a card catalogue of his Indian collec- 
tion. Dick, who had picked up an unusual 
knowledge of the former Indian inhabitants of 
the country round about, was helping her. 

Twilight was already softly gray across the 
silent snowy fields when Margery spied Dick 
driving in by the back way. She ran to the 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


45 


door that opened from the study onto a small 
porch and stood waiting to let him in as he 
came up from the stable. 

“ Oh, Dick,” she exclaimed. “ I’m so glad 
you’ve come. I’m having a dreadful time with 
my cataloguing ! I don’t know what half these 
things are.” 

“ Here, Margery,” commanded Dick, “ hold 
out your hand. As I came along the back 
road I found these hanging on a tree. Old 
Mrs. Possum must have gotten the rest. 
These were all that were left, so I brought 
them to you.” 

From the pocket of his ulster he carefully 
drew out four or five dull-orange persimmons, 
that kept by the frost and cold had not decayed 
but had been preserved with a candied, wild- 
woodsy flavor. 

“ Do you remember your first persimmons? ” 
he asked as he threw his coat down on the sofa 
and, going to the glass case that held the major 
part of Mr. Morris’s collection, began to take 
out some stone spear-heads and inspect 
them. 

Do I? ” asked Margery as she bit into one 
of the persimmons and offered the other to 


46 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Dick. “ It seems hard to realize that it was 
only a little over a year ago that we took that 
walk, and I ate my first persimmon and fell 
into the creek. And to think that I didn’t 
like you and Benjie then! Do possums really 
eat persimmons, Dick? Couldn’t we have a 
possum hunt, sometime? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Dick to her questions. 
“ Got a pencil and paper, Margie? ” 

Coon he up a gum-tree 
Possum in de holla, 

Coon he roll himself in ha^ar. 

Possum roll in talla,^* 

he hummed as he lifted out an Indian pipe. 

There was a good deal of work in the cata- 
loguing of the collection and Dick and Margery 
labored steadily for most of the afternoon. If 
Margery had been a person inclined to give up 
easily what she had once begun she would have 
been tempted to throw down her pen and de- 
clare she could write no more, for her fingers 
grew stiff and numb, and her back and shoul- 
ders ached from leaning over the desk. But 
the thought of the pleasure her grandfather 
would derive from the catalogue, as well as a 


47 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

feeling of pride against giving in before Dick, 
kept her at it. 

Dick, turning from the glass case, noticed 
her air of fatigue. “ Here, Margery,” he com- 
manded, “ you look tired. Get up and I’ll do 
the writing for a while. You just take the 
things out of the case and show them to me, 
then you can paste the numbers on while I 
write down what the object is.” 

Gratefully, Margery resigned her place to 
Dick. 

“ It’s still snowing — I’m afraid that nobody 
will get here,” sighed Margery, looking out of 
the window. “ I suppose I really ought to 
send for people, but Walter always has Sun- 
day afternoon and evening off, and I don’t 
like to ask Papa to run the car, especially after 
he ran it all day yesterday. I suppose he 
would if I asked — but still, I don’t like to ask. 
Polly is coming out to supper, William or her 
father will bring her in their car, but I don’t 
see how the rest are to get here.” 

‘‘ I tell you,” suggested Dick. “ I have old 
Prince; he’s good and strong — one of the farm 
horses, you know. If your grandfather will 
let me have your box-sleigh I’ll drive around 


48 


MARGERY MORRIS 


and get the people. The snow ought to be 
fine and deep by half-past seven.” 

“Oh, Dick! That’s a perfect idea! I’ll 
go and ask right away! Polly and I could go 
with you — what a lark.” 

Mr. Morris made no objection and Mar- 
gery’s father and mother thought the scheme a 
good one. Dick they knew to be a fine horse- 
man and unusually trustworthy for his years. 

At five Polly arrived, bringing in a breath 
of crisp, fresh air. “ It’s stopped snowing,” 
she cried, “ and it’s going to be a wonderful 
evening! ” 

At Mrs. Morris’s suggestion, it had been ar- 
ranged early in the fall that the servants at 
the White House Farm should be given every 
Sunday afternoon and evening off, and that 
Margery should prepare and serve the Sunday 
evening supper. Margery was fond of cook- 
ing and of domestic things, and her mother was 
glad to see it and encouraged her in every 
way. 

At a quarter past five Margery led Dick and 
Polly out to the big shining kitchen and pre- 
sented them with aprons. Dick’s apron re- 
fused to meet about his waist, and so it was 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


49 


hung from his neck. “ The white badge of 
servitude/’ he dramatically pronounced it. 

“ What are you going to have? ” asked 
Polly. 

“ Creamed oysters and chicken salad. I’m 
trusting there was enough chicken left over 
from last night,” answered Margery, as she 
opened the refrigerator door. “ Yes, there’s 
plenty,” and she brought out a big platter of 
cold chicken. “ Here, Polly, you can cut this 
up, and this celery, while I set the table. And, 
Dick, I’ll start you at making the salad dress- 
ing. I’ll mix it and you can stir.” 

Polly obediently perched on a high stool in 
front of the porcelain-topped kitchen table and 
attacked the chicken-bones with a sharp little 
knife. Dick strolled about the kitchen, his 
hands in his pockets, inspecting the various 
highly colored calendars with which Kiley had 
decorated it. 

“ Come, Dick,” remonstrated Margery, “ re- 
member that you are not a lily of the field — 
you’ll have to work. See, I want you to stir 
this very slowly and carefully, adding a drop 
of oil about once in so often. Do you think 
that you can do that? ” 


50 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Yeth ma’am. But what will happen if I 
don’t get the oil in at just the right ‘ once in 
so often ’? ” 

“ The mayonnaise will curdle.” 

“ Gracious, Dick,” laughed Polly, “ this is 
a serious matter. Do be careful.” 

Dick cautiously lowered himself into a chair, 
and placed the bowl firmly between his knees. 

“ Where do you manage to have oysters all 
the time, Margie, when no one else in town can 
get them? ” asked Polly as Margery, having 
set the table, got a big bowl of oysters out of 
the refrigerator. 

“ Oh, we corral them in the cellar where 
Kiley feeds them corn-meal and water to fatten 
them.” 

Polly laughed politely at what she thought 
was intended for a joke. “ But really? ” she 
questioned. 

“ Really we do. We buy them by the barrel 
and Kiley keeps them in the cellar.” 

“ Yes, that’s the way people do,” put in 
Dick. “ Remember your natural history. 
The oyster is an animal, and until he’s actually 
pried out of his shell, he’ll go on living if you 
give him plenty of water and feed him. He’ll 


51 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

open his shell like a mouth, and then in you 
pop some corn-meal, and plenty of water, of 
course.” 

“And if he doesn’t like anything you feed 
him, he just nicely covers it with beautiful shin- 
ing stuflF,” remarked Margery, draining the 
water off the bowl of oysters, “ and behold! — 
pearl ! I’d like to put something in an oyster, 
sometime, and see what would happen.” 

“ I imagine you’d have a good long wait. 
Pearl making is a slow process.” 

“ Wouldn’t it be nice,” Polly philosophized 
as she sliced energetically away at a stalk of 
celery, “ if when disagreeable things came into 
our lives, like Teacher Sarah, for instance, we 
could just cover them with mother-of-pearl 
and turn them into something beautiful? 
Dick,” leaning forward to look at the bowl on 
Dick’s knees, “ I’m sure that you are doing 
that too slowly, isn’t he, Margery? ” 

“ Yes, Dick, you ought to do it very rapidly 
and hard.” 

“ But you said to do it gently and slow.” 

“ Yes, but that was then, and this is 
now.” 

“A very lucid answer,” murmured Dick, and 


52 MARGERY MORRIS 

beat away furiously. ‘‘ Give me camp cook- 
ing — salt horse and things like that.” 

“ Salt horse? ” Margery was horrified, but 
Polly laughed. 

“ He means salt-pork. Salt horse is just the 
camping-out name for it.” 

As soon as supper was over, Dick hurried 
out to the stable to hitch up the sleigh and the 
girls hastily cleared the table. As she knew 
they were anxious to be through, Mrs. Morris 
came out into the pantry to assist with the 
dish-washing. 

It was very snug and warm tucked away in 
the straw that filled the bottom of the box- 
sleigh, with plenty of heavy robes over them. 
The girls sat close together, arm in arm, and 
did not say much. It had stopped snow- 
ing and the moon pushed its way through 
the clouds, and rode high overhead. It shone 
down dazzlingly on the white roadway and 
the snowy fields, and touched with silver 
the snow-wreathed alders and cedars in the 
angles of the fences. Beyond the fields the 
woods rose dark and shadowy. Faintly from 
the town came the sound of a church bell, 
half lost in the tinkling of the sleigh-bells and 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


53 


the crisp creaking of the snow as the runners 
of the sleigh cut through it. Here and there 
they passed some cosy little home where the 
lamplight shone from the windows across the 
snow. 

“ I read the other day,” remarked Polly, 
drawing the robe over her knees closer about 
her, ‘‘ that Sidney Smith said that he would 
just as soon sit in a strong draught, put his 
feet in a bucket of ice- water and ring a dinner- 
bell as to go sleighing. I’m sure he would 
have changed his mind if he had been with us 
to-night.” 

“ I’m sure he would,” agreed Margery with 
conviction. 

They reached the town, and jingled through 
sleepy old streets where the moon shone down 
sedately on steep roofs. Before an old-fash- 
ioned house they stopped and Dick whistled 
loudly. The door opened and pretty Sally 
Watson and her brother came out and climbed 
into the sleigh beside Polly and Margery. 
They stopped before other old-fashioned door- 
ways and other young people came trooping 
out to take their places in the sleigh. Then 
they crossed the old covered bridge to the open 


54 MARGERY MORRIS 

country, and on out to the Crowell farm to get 
Esther. 

By the time they reached the White House 
Farm and had been warmed before the wood- 
fires in hall and library, and had drunk the hot 
cocoa Mrs. Morris had waiting for them, they 
were too hilarious to do any serious work at 
carol-singing. 

“ Still we have made a beginning and we 
can get down to real work next time,” Mrs. 
Morris said as she rose from the piano at the 
end of the evening. 

She crossed the room to her husband, who 
was standing before the fire. ‘‘ If youth, good 
spirits, and enthusiasm can make voices sweet,” 
she said softly, “ the singing about the Tree of 
Light on Christmas ought to make the angels 
envious.” 


CHAPTER IV 


CHRISTMAS EVE 

It Avas the day before Christmas and the old 
streets of Renwyck’s ToAvn were gay. Every 
shop window was decorated and even the un- 
dertaker’s establishment had a great scarlet 
wreath' of immortelles in its glass door to give 
it an air of festivity. The show-windows of 
the toy-shop and of Mrs. Stacey’s Needlework 
Emporium were declared by many to be equal 
to any holiday display in Philadelphia, Ren- 
wyck’s Town’s nearest city. It was also re- 
ported that as many as ten people and a dog 
had been seen gazing at one time into the win- 
dow of Mr. Finklestein, the butcher, where a 
small stuffed pig attired in a sort of harness 
of pink and white pop-corn was the center of 
an original and artistic scheme of decoration. 
Behind the pig Mr. Finklestein had placed a 
large pan of scrapple, tilted to show the motto 
it bore spelled out in cranberries, “ Mery 
Christmas,” the “ mery ” all the more cordial 
65 


56 MARGERY MORRIS 

for its one r. On either side of the scrapple 
was a small statue of Santa Claus modelled out 
of the best brand of pure white lard; artistic 
endeavors for which Mr. Finklestein justly 
took credit. 

The shops were crowded with desperate last- 
minute shoppers who were frantically buying a 
bit of ribbon to finish the pincushion for Cousin 
Mary, or an extra quarter of a yard to com- 
plete the new dress for little Jane’s doll. Busy 
housewives were ordering from flurried clerks 
the final details for to-morrow’s dinner. The 
turkey, all important, had in most cases been 
selected several days before. 

Margery had a busy day before her, but 
everywhere along the pavement were friends 
and acquaintances to whom she must wish the 
merriest of Christmases. Then she must way- 
lay Mr. Jameson, Polly’s stout and indulgent 
father, and hear from him, in the strictest con- 
fidence, just what Polly was to find in her 
stocking the next morning; she had to stop 
Dr. Huston driving past in his old buggy to 
tell him all about the party for mill-workers’ 
children that afternoon; and she had to run 
across the street to chat with young Mrs. Clark 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


57 


about her wonderful baby and with old Mr. 
Sims about his rheumatism, and to agree with 
one on child-training and with the other on 
drugs and doctors and the evils of an east wind. 

“ Margery, dear,” remonstrated her mother, 
coming out of the baker-shop, “ haven’t you 
gone out to the Morris Farm yet? Walter has 
been waiting in front of the Smiths’ with the 
car for you all this time. Hurry, dear, I want 
you to get out there and back before I am 
through here. I have to go down to the Mar- 
tins’ yet, and then I have to go out to old Mrs. 
Smedley’s and leave her the little check Grand- 
papa is anxious for her to have. I shan’t want 
to wait for you. I still have so much to do at 
home! ” 

Repentant, Margery hurried across the 
street to the waiting car and climbed in. 

“ The Morris Farm, Walter,” she said, draw- 
ing the robe tight around her, and snuggling 
down close to the big mastiff sitting on the 
back seat. 

The road to the Morris Farm was minutely 
familiar, but to-day Margery especially en- 
joyed the swift ride through the strip of win- 
try woods, and between the fields still covered 


58 MARGERY MORRIS 

with snow, to the big, old-fashioned red-brick 
mansion that stood far back from the road at 
the end of a long avenue of pine-trees. 

The front door of the house was hospitably 
unlatched, as was the custom at the farm, and 
Margery hurried through the hall and sitting- 
room to the kitchen beyond, where she knew 
she was likely to find Deborah Davis, the 
housekeeper, who made the farm a homelike, 
livable place for Mr. Morris and his orphan 
grandsons, Dick Ball and little Benjamin. 

She found Deborah standing before a table 
on which was spread a row of inince pies. Be- 
side her perched Benjamin, his curly head bent 
over a pile of black walnuts that he was pick- 
ing from their shells. 

“ Oh, Margie,” he cried, delighted, as he 
looked up and saw her standing in the door- 
way, “ I’m so glad you’ve come.” He threw 
both arms about her waist. 

Margery bent over him. The little chap 
held an especial place in her heart. 

“ I left a package in the hall,” she motioned 
with her lips to Deborah over Benjamin’s 
head. 

Deborah smiled. “ I’ll attend to it,” she 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


59 


said. “ Sit down, child. Benjie is picking 
out some walnuts for me, and I am going to 
make some candy. Don’t my pies look nice? 
How are you all at home? ” 

“I can’t stay long,” Margery murmured; 
“ I just came for the toys for the party this 
afternoon, and to bring the packages.” 

Nevertheless, she sat down in a rocking-chair 
by the sunny geranium-filled window, and 
loosened her coat at the throat. The big old- 
fashioned kitchen at the farm was a cheerful 
place with its many-paned windows filled with 
plants, its gay rag-carpet and yellow painted 
walls and above all its air of spotless cleanli- 
ness. Some of Margery’s happiest hours had 
been spent there with Deborah. The tender 
youthful heart of the little housekeeper made 
her the beloved friend of half the young people 
in Renwyck’s Town. Margery was an espe- 
cial favorite of Deborah’s who thoroughly un- 
derstood her nature with its pride and impetu- 
osity and at times petulance, and yet deep 
loyalty and splendid truth and frankness. 
“ Margery will make many mistakes in her 
life,” she was fond of saying, “ but she will 
never do a small, or mean or underhand thing.” 


60 


MARGERY MORRIS 


And Margery in turn loved her little friend 
and brought to her an affection and depend- 
ence that was a happiness to the childless, lov- 
ing heart. 

As Margery sat in the rocking-chair and 
teased Benjamin by deftly filching the nuts 
from him, she thought how pretty Deborah 
looked to-day with her cheeks flushed with the 
heat of the stove, and her silvery hair, usually 
drawn down over her ears in tight bands, dis- 
arranged so that soft little tendrils curled 
about her forehead. Her little gray gown 
and white apron and Quaker-like surplice were, 
as always, spotlessly neat. 

“ Deborah is pretty,” Margery thought to 
herself as her tongue chattered on about the 
plans for the Christmas party. “And you’ll 
be sure to come early and help — remember, 
you promised,” she said. “ There, Benjie — 
there are your nuts. Look at all that I’ve 
caught from you ! Christmas is nice, isn’t it? ” 
she finished with a laugh as she stood up to go. 

Deborah tucked back a soft little gray curl. 
“ Yes,” she said, “ it is. And the older you get 
the nicer it seems. There is a time when people 
have outgrown childhood when they don’t seem 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


61 


to get much out of Christmas. They lose 
sight of what Christmas means and they just 
take it as something to work hard over. It 
reminds me of people that are so busy clean- 
ing up the house and making extra prepara- 
tions for the minister’s visit that by the time 
he gets there they are too tired to enjoy it — 
or even to be half-way polite to the poor 
man. 

“ But when you get to be my age you don’t 
expect so much from Christmas. You’re just 
glad to do as the hymn says and ‘ rest beside 
the weary road to hear the angels sing.’ And 
somehow, no matter how deaf you are, you just 
can’t help hearing some of the singing. It may 
be just a snatch but you do hear some. But 
perhaps the thing that I like best about Christ- 
mas as I get older is that I have come to see 
what a wonderful time it is for people to get 
back into their friendships. Bessie Brown and 
Sallie Robins have been sending each other 
pincushions and tidies for years and have come 
to consider it an awful nuisance. But some 
day some little disagreement or coolness comes 
up between them. And after a while they get 
over it and would like to make up but they 


62 


MARGERY MORRIS 


don’t know how to go about it. Then at 
Christmas time they just send an extra friendly 
note with the pincushion and the tidy, and the 
first thing you know the whole fuss is made up 
without any trouble or explanations at all. 
What shall I wear to your party to-morrow 
night — my gray dress or my best black India 
silk? ” she finished unexpectedly. 

“ The gray,” answered Margery, “ and be 
sure to come early. You promised you would, 
you know. And now I must fly! Mother 
mustn’t be kept waiting. She has such a lot 
to do to-day.” 

After luncheon the car was filled with toys 
and packages of warm clothing and she started 
out again for the town. There she found 
Polly and the other girls waiting in the assem- 
bly room of the Woman’s Club, where it had 
been arranged that the party for the children 
of the mill-workers should be held. 

The tree was already half trimmed and the 
busy young workers were scurrying about. 

“A tree-hook, a tree-hook,” chanted Sally 
Watson, as Margery appeared in the doorway, 
“ my kingdom for a tree-hook ! Margery, give 
me some tree-hooks ! There’s that beloved tree 



THE EAGER CHIEDREN BEGAN TO ARRIVE. 





IN THE PINE WOODS 63 

half trimmed and somebody’s lost the tree- 
hooks.” 

“ I haven’t any,” cried Margery. “ Take 
hair-pins. It wouldn’t seem like Christmas if 
there were enough tree-hooks. Nobody ever 
does have enough.” 

“ Contribute the hair-pins then,” ordered 
Polly. “And climb up there and finish trim- 
ming that tree.” 

Obediently, Margery climbed up the step- 
ladder and proceeded to hang up a fat wax 
cupid and a glass strawberry side by side. 

Scarcely had the last doll been placed in 
position and the last cornucopia been hung up, 
and the missing tree-hooks discovered on top of 
the cake, when the eager children began to 
arrive and their young hostesses’ work com- 
menced in earnest. “Aren’t they adorable?” 
whispered Polly to Margery as a group of the 
little guests clustered in front of the tree, and 
with soft dark Italian eyes glowing and hu- 
morous Irish mouths smiling, gazed at it in 
silent awe. 

“ But they are so shy and quiet,” complained 
Sally. “ Come on, let’s play ‘ I sent a letter 
to my love ’ and stir them up! ” 


64 


MARGERY MORRIS 


By moral suasion and physical force the 
children were placed in a circle, and Sally 
danced about the room back of them, singing 
with all the vivacity she could muster — and 
Sally was an unusually vivacious young per- 
son — 

* I sent a letter to my love, 

1 carried water in my glove, 

1 dropped it, I dropped it, I dropped it, I dropped 
it/ 

For goodness’ sake, Margery, make him pick 
it up and run after me! ” 

But Isadore Abraham refused to pick any- 
thing up, or to run after anyone, much less a 
despised girl, and it ended in Margery’s doing 
it for him. 

Thinking that Sally had made a mistake in 
selecting a boy, and that a girl would be more 
amenable to social conventions, Margery 
dropped the handkerchief in her turn behind 
Ada Bolari, at the same time taking the pre- 
caution to explain in a whisper that Ada must 
pick it up and run after her, Margery, so that 
she in her turn could have the privilege of 
dropping it behind somebody else. 

But Ada was plainly not interested. She 


65 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

smiled a polite acceptance of the information, 
and continued to stare wistfully into space, her 
fat little hands folded on her stomach. 

“ Did you ever see such a collection of little 
graven images?” whispered Polly in despair. 
“And goodness, Margery, what is that child 
going home now for? ” 

Through the window they could see a fat 
blond little girl running down the street. 

“ It’s Fanny Brown,” exclaimed Sally. 
“ She lives in that little house around the cor- 
ner — her mother works at the factory. Some- 
body will have to catch her.” 

“ Come on, Polly,” cried Margery, and 
laughing the two girls ran out of the door and 
down the street after the fat little legs that 
seemed to fairly fly over the pavement. 

“ Gracious,” panted Margery, as they finally 
caught up with Fanny at her own front gate, 
“ to think that fat little butter-ball could run 
so fast! ” 

“ I’ve had enough party! ” shrieked Fanny, 
realizing that she was fairly cornered at last. 
“ I’ve had enough party!” 

Polly and Margery looked at each other. 
“And the party has only just begun,” groaned 


66 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Polly. “ Do you suppose they all want to go 
home?’’ Margery asked with a sigh. They 
turned to Fanny. “ But it’s going to be such 
a nice party,” they cried in unison. 

“ Had enough party.” 

“ Yes, but it’s going to be the most beauti- 
ful party! Come back with us, Fanny, like a 
good little girl! ” 

Fanny began to prance. “ Had enough 
party! Had enough party!” she protested 
loudly. 

“ But, Fanny, you must be a good little 
girl! ” 

The fat little legs pranced up and down 
faster than ever. “ Had enough party,” their 
owner insisted. “ Don’t want any more 
party! ” 

Despairingly, Polly tried again. “ But, 
Fanny ” 

“ Don’t want any more party! ” 

Margery tried a new tack. “Santa Claus 
is going to be very much disappointed if Fanny 
isn’t there,” she remarked in a loud voice to 
Polly. 

“ Had enough party.” But the tone was 
wavering. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 67 

“ Poor Santa Claus ! And he had such a 
nice doll for Fanny,” 

“ What kind of a doll? ” Fanny plainly 
showed interest. 

“ Oh, a lovely doll with curly hair. Polly, 
I’m almost frozen. We’ll be sick if we stand 
here. Come, Fanny, we’ll have to run to get 
back before Santa Claus comes. You wouldn’t 
hurt poor Santa’s feelings! ” 

‘‘ Thank goodness, she has some considera- 
tion for Santa Claus’s feelings if she hasn’t for 
ours,” whispered Polly, as Fanny slipped her 
hand into hers and they all ran back to the 
club-house. 

“ Where have you been? ” cried Esther, com- 
ing to the door. “You look half frozen! 
What shall we do with these children? We’ve 
played London Bridge, and Going to Jem- 
salem, and Ring-around-a-rosy, and they just 
stand still looking bored to death! We girls 
have had to do all the playing, and let them 
watch us. Do suggest something to get things 
started.” 

“Have the ice-cream now,” suggested the 
practical Margery. “ When I was little a 
party meant ice-cream to me, and I never felt 


68 


MARGERY MORRIS 


happy or contented until I had had my ice- 
cream, and could give a free mind to playing 
games.” 

“ That’s a good idea,” agreed Sally. 

But the rest of the young hostesses did not 
comply so easily. A party was almost as 
solemn a function to them as to the children. 
They had painstakingly mapped out this one 
on definite lines; the children were to enter 
wildly exhilarated over being invited to a party 
at all ; there were to be exciting games in which 
everyone was to be very much at home; then 
Santa Claus was to appear and the presents 
were to be distributed, and finally as the 
crowning touch, the ice-cream was to be 
served. 

“ No, no,” Esther declared louder than she 
realized. “ It never would do to have the ice- 
cream first ! ” 

But at the mention of ice-cream there was 
such an obvious lessening of embarrassment, 
such a visible brightening of small faces, that 
the girls looked at one another. “ The ayes 
have it,” said Sally; “the motion is seconded 
and carried that the ice-cream be served at 
once, right away, tout de suite 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


69 


“ Stick them in a circle on the floor,” ordered 
Polly, “ while we fly to serve them, and lift the 
pall that is hanging over this festive occa- 
sion.” 

“ To think that such cold chilly stuff should 
have such an exhilarating effect — and such a 
loosening effect on tongues,” whispered Mar- 
gery to Polly, as each child was Anally given a 
large plate of ice-cream and a delectable sticky 
cake. 

“ Too loosening an effect,” laughed Polly 
as small Rosa Donini burst into roars of stormy 
grief because Charlie Fitzgerald had taken half 
of her cake. 

The girls hastened to give Rosa another cake 
in the place of the purloined one, and to re- 
move the young Irishman to a secluded corner 
where he could not poke, strike, slap, or grab 
from any other child. 

Margery devoted herself to a round, black- 
eyed Polish baby of three who was eating her 
ice-cream with the eagerness of a baby robin 
swallowing an insect. “ Baby dear,” she cried, 
kneeling down beside her, “you mustn’t eat 
it so fast — it will make your poor little head 
ache.” 


70 


MARGERY MORRIS 


But the baby had already dropped her spoon 
and was clutching her forehead with screams 
of indignation. 

“ Do you suppose that they can possibly eat 
any more? ’’ asked Sally, coming up to Mar- 
gery and Polly, “ because if they can’t we 
might as well let Santa Claus appear on the 
scene now.” 

“ It’s a good thing that Fanny condescended 
to come back out of consideration of Santa 
Claus’s feelings,” laughed Margery a few 
minutes later, “ for he looks, poor thing, as 
though he needed all the kindness he can get,” 
and she nodded toward the figure with a pack 
on its back that was painfully squeezing 
through an improvised fireplace built of three 
chairs and a screen. 

“ It’s funny,” giggled Sally, “ but there is 
something about that suit of his that suggests 
that it might have begun life as a pair of red 
gymnasium bloomers and a sweater, and that 
as he has borrowed them they are rather too 
tight. Quite uncomfortable in fact.” 

“And do you know,” returned Margery, 
“ that if I didn’t know positively that it was 
Santa Claus speaking, I should suspect that 


IN THE PINE WOODS 71 

might be Polly with a thimble in her mouth, to 
disguise her speech.” 

“ I hope she won’t swallow it,” murmured 
Esther anxiously. 

At last laden with gifts and wreathed in 
smiles, the happy children were gone, and there 
was no one left save a tiny Italian girl of about 
six, who sat in a little chair by the door with 
her heavy baby brother in her lap. 

“ I wonder why they don’t go home,” said 
Margery. “ It’s half-past four now, and I 
have to be at the station to meet the Watkins 
at five.” 

“ I’ll go and see,” volunteered Sally. “ She 
says they are waiting for some of us to take 
them home,” she reported, coming back. 

“ Where do they live? ” 

“ Down on Collins Street.” 

“ Well, I can’t possibly take them there — I 
have to fly now.” 

‘‘And I.” 

“And I.” 

“ Well,” said Margery, “ that’s down by the 
station. Polly, you and I could take them. 
And then go back to the station. Come 


72 


MARGERY MORRIS 


The baby was brown and dimpled, and Mar- 
gery, as she held out her hand to him, decided 
that he was adorable. But by the time they 
had gone a square she had completely changed 
her mind. The baby refused to hold anyone’s 
hand, refused to walk, and plumping down on 
the sidewalk, refused to budge. 

“ What shall we do with him? ” gasped 
Polly after she had vainly tugged him to his 
feet for the third time, only to have him col- 
lapse again like a sack of meal. 

“ Can’t you make him behave himself prop- 
erly? ” she questioned his sister. 

The little girl smiled, a radiant smile, and 
shook her head. 

“ Well, something has to be done,” Margery 
sighed. “ That train will be here before we 
know it. We might carry him — but he’s so 
awfully heavy. I have an idea! We’re near the 
O’Neils. I’ll run in and see if I can borrow 
Jennie O’Neil’s sled.” 

“ Now then, young man,” Polly said firmly, 
as Margery appeared from the O’Neils’ yard 
dragging a small sled, “ you are going to ride 
on this and behave like a properly brought up 
baby!” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


73 


But the baby had no intentions of behaving 
like a properly brought up anything. Howl- 
ing and kicking his heels against the sled, he 
promptly rolled off into the snow. 

“ You’ll have to sit on the sled and hold him 
on,” declared Margery to the little sister. 
“ We’ll pull you both. Come on, Polly. 
Gee up, horsey.” 

The horses cavorted and ran and cried, 
“ Gee up, horsey,” in the most natural and 
horse-like manner, but still the baby howled 
and beat his heels against the sled in a fine 
frenzy of Latin temperament. 

The pavements were rough and slippery, 
and the double load on the sled grew increas- 
ingly hard to pull. 

“ I declare,” panted Margery, at length, 
stopping to rest, “ I believe that it would be 
just as easy to carry him for a while. I’m go- 
ing to try it anyway.” 

In Margery’s arms the baby grew rather 
more reposeful; although he casually kicked 
her in the side, and wept great salt tears down 
the back of her neck. 

“ Really, Polly,” she gasped after she had 
staggered with him for half a block, ‘‘ a baby 


74 MARGERY MORRIS 

can be as cruel as Nero, or any of those old 
tyrants/* 

“ Let me carry him for a while/* 

“ I tell you what we*ll do. I’ll take his feet 
and you can take his head and shoulders and 
we’ll cart him along that way. And he can 
yell his head off if he wants to,” she finished 
elegantly. 

The baby, however, accepted this new mode 
of transportation with astonishing composure. 

“ Perhaps he’s used to being carried this 
way,” suggested Polly after they had gone a 
full block in peaceful quiet. “ I declare ! — 
he's asleep! ” 

Margery, glancing over her shoulder, laughed 
as she saw the baby, the picture of innocence, 
long lashes resting on his plump cheeks, and 
his dewy, rosy lips parted in gentle slumber. 

The silent little sister tugged at Polly’s 
sleeve, and smiling her shy and radiant smile, 
pointed to a house a few steps beyond. 

“ Da housa,” she murmured. 

‘^At last! ** breathed Polly and Margery, as 
they handed the baby in at the door to a buxom 
young woman and thankfully fled to the 
station. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


75 


They were both weary after their efforts at 
baby-training, and they were glad to rest in 
the dingy little waiting-room, “ I never see 
this station,” said Margery, settling back in 
her place with a long sigh, “ without thinking 
of that first day I came to Renwyck’s Town, 
and how mad I was, and how Dick met me.” 

“ What a lot has happened since then,” said 
Polly thoughtfully. “ I wonder what is going 
to happen next.” 

They were silent for a few minutes, feeling 
slightly depressed, they scarcely knew why. 

“ I suppose we’re tired,” remarked Margery 
after a while. 

“ I suppose so.” 

The station clock ticked and there was no 
other sound beyond the snapping of the coal in 
the sheet-iron stove. 

The door opened and Dick and Sam came in. 
“We thought we’d find you here,” Dick ex- 
plained. “ We want to be on hand, too, to 
welcome our young friends, so forth, and so 
on. Oh, I say, there comes the train now. 
We were just in time! ” 

They hurried out to the platform just as the 
train came to a standstill. 


76 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ There they are,” cried Margery, waving 
frantically to a tall, slender, red-haired boy 
standing on the train steps. “ There’s Jack! 
And, oh, there’s J ane I J ane ! J ane ! ” 

She ran forward to throw her arms round a 
slight, dark-haired girl whose shy, wistful face 
was beaming with affection and delight. “ Oh, 
Janey, you duck, it’s so wonderful to see you.” 

More sedately she shook hands with Perry 
Watkins, a big boy whose handsome counte- 
nance showed both force and intelligence, and 
with Marion, Jane’s elder sister. Then as 
Mr. and Mrs. Watkins stepped down from the 
train, she hurried forward to speak to them. 

Laughing, talking, exclaiming, tripping 
over the umbrella that Jack in his excitement 
managed at various intervals to poke between 
the feet of almost everyone in the party, they 
all surged down the platform to the front of 
the station where Walter waited with the car. 

As they were the thinnest members of the 
group, Margery and Jane crowded into the 
front seat with Walter, where they sat raptur- 
ously holding hands and exchanging whispered 
confidences. The winter evening had settled 
down and the stars were shining, while in the 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


77 


old houses the lights had been lit, and shone out 
across the snow through holly-trimmed win- 
dows. Here and there someone had placed a 
tall candle in the window to mark Christmas 
Eve. 

All her life, Margery was to remember her 
glow of happiness, the feeling of home-coming 
and Christmas joy, as she led her friends into 
the big, holly-decked hall at the White House 
Farm where there was candle-light and a blaz- 
ing wood-fire, and her father and mother wait- 
ing with welcome on their lips and in their 
hearts. 

“ Oh, Janey,” she cried a dozen times, as 
after dinner she and Jane wrapped up in heavy 
sweaters and coats in preparation for the even- 
ing in the village square by the Tree of Light, 
“ it is so wonderful to have you here! ” 

“ It’s wonderful for us to be here,” remarked 
Perry Watkins, coming to the back of the hall. 
“We never thought last summer that we 
should all be here so happily together.” 

He and Margery looked at each other in 
thoughtful silence. They could not speak of 
those awful hours the summer before when 
battling in a stormy sea it had seemed im- 


78 


MARGERY MORRIS 


possible that they should ever see another 
Christmas, but neither of them could ever 
forget. 

“ Margery dear,” called Mrs. Morris, “ we 
must hurry. Come, boys and girls, come, 
everybody! ” 

The crowd had already begun to gather as 
the party from the White House Farm reached 
the moonlit village square where the Tree of 
Light, tall and straight, stood draped with 
garlands of electric lights. Automobiles were 
parked in all the side streets and in the shed 
of the neighboring church were tied a row of 
carriages and sleighs. 

“ Oh, Margie,” cried Polly, as Margery 
stepped out of the car. “ I thought you would 
never get here. Everyone is here, Dick, and 
Sam, and Sally and Esther, and all the rest of 
the class at school. There they are close to 
the tree.” 

Perry moved closer to her. “ I say, Mar- 
gery,” he said, “ I’m glad we came. I didn’t 
think much of the idea of this Tree of Light, 
at first. But it is interesting. Look at all 
those people around the tree — look at the dif- 
ferent types of faces.” 


79 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

Margery turned to look at the faces near her. 
Excited as she was she noted the differences 
between them; here the kindly, half -humorous 
countenance of some farmer, the descendant of 
some long-ago pioneer; there the vivid, swarthy 
face of Italy ; beyond, the bitter visage of some 
Jew from Russia. “ To think,” she whispered 
to her mother, who, tuning fork in hand, had 
come up to her, “ that we should all be here 
together to-night — Jew, and Gentile, and 
every nationality.” 

Her mother smiled and pressed her arm. 
“ And all good Americans,” she said. “ Is 
the choir all ready? Everybody here? We 
might as well begin, then. Papa will press the 
button to turn on the lights on the tree just as 
soon as the first carol has been sung.” 

“ Come on, now,” whispered Jack. “ Don’t 
quaver whatever we do. People will think we 
are ashamed of ourselves — come on, loud and 
clear! ” 

In spite of his warning, the choir began 
rather auaveringly. It had suddenly felt it- 
self very youthful and inexperienced, and also 
a little awed by the solemn hush of the crowd 
gathered close about it. But if it was young 


80 


MARGERY MORRIS 


and frightened, it also was brave, and led by 
Perry’s fine voice and Margery’s clear pipe it 
kept courageously on until the last verse of 
the old carol, when just as the lights were 
flashed on that turned the tall dark spruce into 
a vivid glowing symbol of Christmas joy, a 
rich true voice from someone in the crowd 
took up the words again. Others about the 
tree joined in, and once more they sang the 
beautiful old song: 

*^The first Nowell the Angel did say. 

Was to three poor shepherds in fields as they lay; 
In fields where they lay keeping their sheep 
In a cold winter* s night that was so deep; 

Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, Nowell, 

Born is the King of Israel.** 

“ It’s almost twelve o’clock,” said Mrs. 
Morris, trying to herd her party together. 
“ We really must go home. Come, Margery. 
Come, Jane. Jack, you rascal, stop talking to 
Sally, and come! See, the lights will be out in 
a few minutes.” 

Margery turned to Dick. She wanted to 
say something, to express in some way what 
she had felt as she had stood there singing 


IN THE PINE WOODS 81 

while the lights had flashed on in the great 
tree. 

Dick understood. “ It wasn’t so bad,” he 
said in his taciturn way, “ was it now? Made 
you feel pretty ‘ Christmassy ’ — and, well, like a 
pretty good American, too? ” 

“ Oh, Dick, didn’t it, though? ” 

“ Margery. Come, dear.” 

“ Yes, Mother — I’m coming.” She climbed 
into the car, and sank down on the front seat, 
between Jane and her father. The moon 
shone down on the old houses clustered about 
the square, silvering the roofs and quaint tall 
chimneys, and lighted the crowd that still 
lingered about the tree. 

“Look, Jane, look back.” As the girls 
gazed the lights on the tree went out, leaving 
only the star blazing at the top, symbol of hope 
in an unhappy, war-torn world. 

“They looked up and saw a star!” sang 
Margery softly, slipping her hand into Jane’s. 

Shining in the East beyond them far, 

And to the Earth it gave great light, 

And so it continued both day and night, 
Nowell, Nowell — ” 


CHAPTER V 


THE ICE STORM 

The winter sleet was falling steadily, 
heavily, as though it were lead instead of ice. 
The sky was leaden, too. The meadows and 
the town beyond were shut out from view; 
even the tall box -borders of the garden and the 
tree by the gate had disappeared behind the 
heavy curtain of sleet. 

The bushes by the drawing-room window 
kept up a steady rattle against the glass, and 
Margery practising a page of monotonous ex- 
ercises felt no less dreary than the gray gloom 
outside. 

One, and two, and three, and four, and,” 
she counted listlessly to the metronome. “ Oh, 
how I hate these old exercises. One, two, 
three, four. Oh, dear, I wish it would clear 
up!” 

She left the piano and strolled to the win- 
dow. In the bushes outside hung an empty 
82 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


83 


robins’ nest, a ruin, its tiny thatch hanging 
loose in the wind. Dick had once told her of 
finding a mouse that had occupied a cast-off 
birds’ nest, lined it with downy fur and made a 
comfortable winter home out of it. There, 
snug and warm, it had swung in the winter 
gales while the snow swirled about it. The 
only drawback being that the stairway to its 
home, the slanting branch of the bush in which 
the nest was hung, was often so covered with 
ice that it was impossible for the mouse to get 
down, and if down to slide up. Margery, eager 
to see if this nest were inhabited, leaned for- 
ward, pressing her face against the cold win- 
dow-pane. 

Her head ached feverishly and a knife 
seemed to be sticking into her chest. The 
coolness of the glass was soothing to her flushed 
forehead and she remained pressed against the 
window, half idly expecting to see the pointed 
ears and sharp black eyes of the little deer 
mouse, or “ white foot,” sticking out of the 
nest, half idly watching to see if some of the 
winter birds, the juncos or chickadees, king- 
sparrows or downy-woodpeckers, might have 
been driven in close to the house by the storm. 


84 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ What does become of them? ” she thought, 
closing her eyes. ‘‘ I wonder if they don’t get 
cold in the storms. If I feel so badly in a nice 
warm house, how must they feel out in the 
snow and sleet? I’m glad that Dick and I 
spread food for them anyway.” 

With Dick’s assistance on Christmas morn- 
ing, Margery had made a feeding station for 
the birds in one of the blue-spruces near the 
house. They had tied suet on the branches for 
the chickadees and blue jays, put crumbs and 
seeds in feeding cups for the j uncos and spar- 
rows and cracked nuts for the nuthatches. 

“ There were a lot of birds here this morn- 
ing,” she thought, rubbing her hand over her 
aching forehead. “ I wish that Jane and the 
others had been here to see them. Oh, I miss 
Jane and the boys so! It was such fun over 
Christmas! I wish that it had never had to 
stop. I never can have such a wonderful time 
again! ” 

The Christmas house-p'arty had been almost 
too great a success. Life had seemed stale 
and unprofitable to all the young people after 
it was over and the routine of ordinary life 
resumed. Margery, who had exerted herself 


IN THE PINE WOODS 85 

beyond her strength and who had caught a 
heavy cold beside, felt the reaction keenly. 

“ The only comfort I have,’" she had de- 
clared to Dick several days after her guests 
had left, “ is to look at the snap-shots we took, 
and to live over again the fun we had.” 

Dick had held out his hand for the photo- 
graphs with a laugh. “ Cheer up, Margie,” he 
urged. “ You’re usually such a level-headed 
young person ! I suppose what is hitting you 
hardest is that everything went so well — the 
right people and the right time and every- 
thing.” 

‘‘ That’s what Jane was always saying about 
the house-party,” she answered. 

“ It’s only once in a lifetime,” Jane had 
declared on Christmas night as she and Mar- 
gery were dressing for the party, “ that every- 
thing comes just right — that you get the place 
and the people and the time together. Think 
of being here, in this perfect old house, with 
everything so beautiful, the snowy fields and 
the woods and the quaint little old to^vn,” and 
Jane, who was an art-student, went to the win- 
dow to gaze once more on the stretch of snowy, 
moonlit meadows and the distant lights of the 


86 


MARGERY MORRIS 


town. ‘‘And think of us all being here to- 
gether. For you to have your mother and me 
to have mine, after we both had been sepa- 
rated from them last summer. And for me 
to have Marion, and to see her so well and 
strong, and so happy at college.” 

“And to have the boys, too,” suggested 
Margery, with a teasing smile. “ Don’t for- 
get Perry and Jack and little Amdrew.” 

Jane had not always been good friends with 
her stepbrothers, and Margery had done her 
share in bringing about a better feeling. 

Jane had gathered her silken kimono closer 
about her, and going to the fire had held out 
her hand to the blaze. “ Yes,” she said shyly, 
bending down and looking into the glowing 
coals, “it is nice to have them here, and to be 
on such good terms with them. They are so 
nice, and so thoughtful, and kind. They are 
like real sons to Mother, and I’m sure real 
brothers couldn’t be nicer to Marion and 
me. 

Recalling their conversation and the fun that 
they had had dressing together in her big com- 
fortable room for the Christmas party, Mar- 
gery leaned back on the window-seat, and put- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


87 


ting a fat sofa cushion behind her head, settled 
herself to live again in memory the delights 
of the happy, care-free holidays. 

Best of all she had enjoyed the party of 
Christmas night. 

She had been allowed to invite whomever 
she wanted and the list included not only most 
of the young people of Renwyck’s Town but 
Deborah Davis and old Dr. Huston, Mr. and 
Mrs. Jameson and all the Crowells, big and 
little. “ I suppose that there will have to be 
cards and conversation for the older people,” 
she had said to her mother, “ and Deborah has 
promised to look after Benjie and little Andy 
Watkins, and all the little Crowells, and any- 
body else too young to dance.” 

“ But all we in-betweeners will want to 
dance,” Polly, who was helping Margery and 
Mrs. Morris to make plans, had cried. “ There 
is so little opportunity to dance here in Ren- 
wyck’s Town, and it will be perfect here on 
these wonderful hardwood floors ! ” 

In the close community life of the place the 
foibles and fads of everyone were known. Mar- 
gery, Polly and Esther had worked for several 
days before Christmas to devise little gifts to 


88 


MARGERY MORRIS 


hang on the tree, gifts that, while touching 
each one’s idiosyncrasy with wit and appro- 
priateness, should at the same time be kind. 
Mrs. Morris had been very insistent upon that 
last clause. 

Just before it was time for the merrymakers 
to gather in a large circle around the tree, Mar- 
gery had confided to Mr. Jameson, Polly 
Jameson’s stout and amiable father, her re- 
gret that she had not thought in time of having 
a Santa Claus to distribute the jokes and 
gifts. 

“ It seems as though something always gets 
left out,” she had lamented. “ No matter how 
carefully one plans.” 

“ Easy enough to fix this something,” Mr. 
Jameson had answered, and there had followed 
a great sh-sh of whispering from the corner 
where he and Margery were sitting. 

Everybody had been too busy dancing to 
pay any attention to them or notice when Mr. 
Jameson, followed by Margery, had slipped up 
the stairs with remarkable agility considering 
his two hundred and fifty pounds. 

Katie, the rosy-cheeked waitress, had col- 
lapsed into helpless giggles as she was sent 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


89 


scurrying hither and thither obeying orders. 
Margery’s scarlet evening cloak must be 
brought and draped over Mr. Jameson’s shoul- 
ders. Mr. Morris’s sealskin sleighing cap had 
been discovered and perched on the summit of 
Mr. Jameson’s bald head, and, most delight- 
ful moment to Katie of all, Polly’s white fox 
muff, her father’s Christmas gift to her, had 
been extracted from the pile of wraps on the 
guest-room bed, and tied, as Santa Claus’ 
beard, under her fond parent’s chin. 

“ Oh, you look splendid,” Margery had 
exulted, giving the beard a final critical pat. 
“ If only we had something for Santa’s high 
boots! Wait a minute until I see what I can 
find! Here’s something,” coming back from 
her room with two big sheets of dark green 
blotting paper. “We can wrap these around 
your ankles for boots ! ” 

“ Napoleon never had any that looked more 
military,” Mr. Jameson had declared as Mar- 
gery and Katie went down on their knees and 
tied the blotters on. “ They are very stagey 
and romantic! Now for my pack.” 

The laundry bag had supplied that, and the 
now hysterical Katie had escorted Santa Claus 


90 


MARGERY MORRIS 


down the back stairs, while Margery had 
hurried down the front way to assemble her 
guests around the tree. Just as with many 
witticisms among the boys and much admiring 
laughter among the girls, they had been finally 
settled in a circle, there was a tremendous 
banging and stamping and jingling of bells 
outside the door at the back of the hall, and 
Santa Claus, his pack on his back, had entered. 

Margery, thinking of all the happiness of 
the Christmas time and contrasting it with the 
loneliness and dreariness of the sleet-storm, 
and oppressed by the pain in her head and 
chest, leaned back and lost herself in the joys 
of living it all over again. Outside the storm 
grew worse, the ice-coated bushes clashed 
against the windows with every gust of wind, 
the trees rattled with a glassy sound. Inside 
the room grew cooler as the fire on the hearth 
died down, but Margery had drifted off to 
sleep. 

When she woke she was stiff and chilled. It 
was cold by the window ; one of the sashes had 
been left slightly open and a current of air 
came in. 

‘‘ Oh, dear! ” Margery sighed, rubbing her 


IN THE PINE WOODS 91 

Heavy eyes. ‘‘ How dreadful I feel. I wish 
Papa and Mamma were home ! ” 

Her father and mother had gone to the city 
for the day and would not be home until the 
late evening train. 

She dragged herself off the window-seat and 
up the stairs to her own room. From her win- 
dow she tried to gaze out across the gray lawn 
and garden. 

“ The poor birds,” she thought wearily. “ I 
can’t see one. What becomes of them in a 
storm? ” 

“ Grandpapa,” she asked as she sat down to 
a lonely dinner with her grandfather, 
“ what becomes of the birds in weather like 
this?” 

Her grandfather looked at her keenly. 
“ You don’t look well, Margery,” he asked. 
“What’s the matter? The birds?” he went 
on as Margery protested that she was “ per- 
fectly well.” “ Oh, I suppose they have rather 
a hard time. The wild ducks, when the tides 
in the Delaware are very high or the waters 
are very rough, usually come up into the 
quieter waters of the creek. So I suppose that 
they learn to take care of themselves. 


92 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ The crows have a worse time. In the 
pine-barrens, I have seen them in a pitiful 
state after a storm. They tuck their heads 
beneath their wing coverts, protecting the 
whole body except one side of their heads which 
the feathers of the wings cannot shelter. This 
leaves an eye exposed which freezes in very 
severe weather, causing a slow, painful death.’’ 

‘‘ Ugh,” shivered Margery. 

After dinner she went at once to bed. Her 
chest hurt her so that she had trouble in getting 
to sleep but at last she slipped into troubled 
dreams. 

The fate of the birds seemed to be mixed 
with the pain in her chest and head. At one 
time she felt herself to be a crow hiding in a 
tall pine-tree in the barrens, and the icy winter 
wind freezing her to death. Again she thought 
that she was a meadow-lark crouched in the 
snow in some hidden corner of a field. The 
snow turned to fire and seemed to be burning 
her up. She cried out with the pain and opened 
her eyes. 

“ Yes, darling, yes,” someone murmured, 
and Margery grew conscious that her mother 
was bending anxiously over her. Her gaze 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


93 


fastened on the golden birds embroidered on 
her mother’s kimono, and she cried again, half 
in panic that they too would be frozen, half in 
pain. 

Again she drifted off into unconsciousness, 
and then again she roused; she realized 
vaguely, as though across eons of space, that 
the doctor was bending over her, and that be- 
hind him, white-faced and frightened, her 
father and mother were standing. 

Out of a dim mist a voice said something 
about pneumonia. 

“ Yes,” said Margery, her voice sounding 
very queer and far-away to her own ears as 
though someone else were using it for her, 
“ that’s the trouble — the meadow-larks and the 
crows have pneumonia. The mouse is all 
right — ^he has the robin’s nest to live in.” 

Her eyes closed and she relapsed again into 
unconsciousness. 


CHAPTER VI 


THE SPRING THAW 

Before Margery was strong enough to be 
propped up in the big chair by the window of 
her mother’s room, February had come. It 
was a gray February with the snow melted and 
the rain beating down every day. Here and 
there muskrats had eaten through the banks 
that confined the swollen creek and the waters 
had poured over the meadows and farm lands, 
leaving them flattened and mud-stained. 

From her window Margery could look down 
over the garden to the dreary meadows beyond. 
The sight depressed her and she asked to have 
her chair moved away from the window to the 
side of the chimney-place where a bright little 
fire was kept burning. 

Her illness had been acute. The delicacy, 
which in spite of an outward appearance of 
health, had lingered on since she had been 
nearly drowned the summer before, and the 
fact that she was growing fast, had made her 
94 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


95 


less able to resist the ravages of pneumonia. 
It had been a time of terrible anxiety for the 
household at the White House Farm, but Mar- 
gery had been too ill to realize much that was 
happening, and she never remembered very 
distinctly those weeks of pain and delirium. 

Even now that she was able to sit up for 
several hours each day, the doctor thought her 
too weak for visits from her young friends. 
Only Deborah Davis had been allowed to see 
her. 

Deborah came every afternoon and her 
quaint little ways, and the cheerfulness that 
was never forced but which came from some 
deep inner serenity wrought by trials and sor- 
rows lived bravely through, was very helpful 
to Margery, and her quiet voice setting forth 
bits of philosophy or telling droll little stories 
of the people she had known, was a factor in 
the convalescence. 

‘‘ I remember,” Deborah began one after- 
noon, taking her knitting out of the bag, 
“ what a time we had one year when I was a 
girl, with our chickens and ducks. We had 
one old rooster that was very unpopular with 
all the other chickens. They would peck at 


96 


MARGERY MORRIS 


him continually, so he went and lived with the 
ducks, and became a sort of king over them. 
I can see him now, leading the ducks down to 
the pond, all of them waddling after him single 
file. Well, finally, we sold off all the ducks 
but one, and that left it and the rooster in 
solitary grandeur. Evidently they didn’t like 
that, for the rooster went back to the society of 
the chickens, taking the duck with him. One 
night we heard a tremendous commotion in the 
hen-house. My sister came to me all excited. 
‘ Debby,’ she said, ‘ there’s a weasel in that hen- 
house as sure as fate. We’ll have to take the 
boys’ gun and go and shoot it.’ The boys were 
out, so we took their gun, and inwardly very 
scared but outwardly the bravest of the brave, 
we went out to the hen-house. We were ter- 
ribly afraid to fire that gun, so we peeped in at 
the little window in the door first, and what do 
you suppose we saw? Why, the duck was try- 
ing to act like a chicken and perch on the roost 
the way the others did. Of course its old web 
toes wouldn’t help it, and every time it climbed 
up it fell off again, and then the chickens would 

squawk. But still it ” 

“ Deborah,” interrupted Margery, “ do you 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


97 


know I don’t understand Polly at all. Every- 
body else writes to me, but I don’t hear a word 
from Polly.” 

Mrs. Morris glanced up anxiously from the 
letter she was writing. 

Deborah took off her spectacles and wiped 
them. 

“ I think that it’s awfully queer that Polly 
doesn’t write or ’phone or do anything. Every- 
body else has. Why, Dick and Sam and Sally 
remember me all the time. Just look at all 
these funny drawings from Dick,” and she held 
up some cartoons Dick had sent that morning. 
“ I’ve thought surely every day that I’d hear 
from Polly.” 

“ Yes, dear, I know,” her mother mur- 
mured, going to the window and looking 
out. 

“ Don’t you think it’s queer, Deborah? ” 
Margery went on. You don’t suppose I 
said anything to hurt Polly’s feelings before I 
was sick, do you? I felt so queer and ill that 
I might have said anything.” 

Deborah cast off five stitches. “ One, two, 
three, four, five,” she counted aloud. “ No, 
dear,” she said gently, “ it isn’t anything that 


98 


MARGERY MORRIS 


you have done. Sorrow has come to Polly. 
That’s the reason of her silence.” 

“ Sorrow? ” 

“ Yes, sorrow, dear.” 

“ Polly isn’t sick — or dead, or anything? ” 
asked Margery, looking at her mother pite- 
ously. 

“ No, dear. Polly’s father died while you 
were so ill. We haven’t told you before be- 
cause it seemed best to wait until you were 
stronger.” 

“ Oh, Mother, not Mr. Jameson! Why, he 
looked so well and strong. Don’t you remem- 
ber how jolly he was at the Christmas party? ” 
Margery’s eyes filled with tears that over- 
flowed and rolled down her white cheeks. 
“And Polly, poor Polly! ” 

“ He died very suddenly,” Deborah said 
gently. “ It was heart failure. He was such 
a kind man — such a good man. We will have 
to do all that we can to help Polly. His affairs 
have been left in a very involved state, too. It 
was worry they say that killed him. And I 
am afraid that there will be hard days, as well 
as sad ones, ahead for poor Polly.” 

The sad, pale girl in the sorrowful little 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


99 


black frock who came to see Margery a few 
days later was so different from the old buoy- 
ant, happy-go-lucky Polly that she felt em- 
barrassed. Polly, however, was too sad to feel 
any embarrassment, and after she had talked of 
Margery’s illness began to speak simply and 
from a full heart of her own sorrows. 

“ We’ll have to rent the house, for the pres- 
ent, at any rate,” she went on, after they had 
spoken of her father. “ Old Mrs. Smith and 
her daughter are going to take it. And we 
are going away for the rest of the winter.” 

“ Oh, Poll, where? ” 

‘‘ To Pine Lake. Mrs. Stenton, the friend 
of an old friend of Mother’s supports a rest- 
home there for teachers and professional 
women who have broken down. Mother is to 
run the rest-home. She will get a salary for 
doing it, and of course it gives us a home be- 
side. Mrs. Stenton is a very wealthy woman 
who is at the head of a big school for girls in 
New York State; she ” 

‘‘ Oh, but Polly, you don’t have to go, too. 
Why don’t you just stay here with me, and 
keep on at school? ” 

Polly got up and went to the window. 


100 MARGERY MORRIS 

Margery watched her anxiously. Was Polly 
crying? 

To Margery’s relief Polly turned from the 
window at last. “ Your grandfather asked 
me to do that,” she murmured with trembling 
lips. “ He wanted to educate me. He is so 
kind and good. But Mother is so sad, and 
seems so delicate. She is going to need me at 
Pine Lake. I’ll have to go with her, and 
take care of her, and try to help to run 
things.” 

“ But your education, Polly? ” cried Mar- 
gery. “ What about your education? Oh, 
Polly, I don’t see how you can possibly go to 
Pine Lake.” 

“ I probably shan’t be able to afford to go to 
college, anyway. And the girl who teaches 
the village school at Pine Lake will teach me 
some things. Besides, Mother needs me.” 

The trained nurse appeared with a tray. 
“ Here is some cocoa for you two girls,” she 
announced with a smile that seemed to say, 
‘‘ There must be no more serious conversation ; 
it’s bad for my patient.” 

Pine Cottage is very pretty, they say,” said 
Polly with an obvious effort to speak lightly, 


IN THE PINE WOODS 101 

“ and there is a duck of a little sleeping cabin 
on the grounds for an overflow house.” 

After Polly left Margery learned more 
about her plans. The homelike old house in 
Renwyck’s Town was to be rented furnished 
and in a week or so, Polly and her mother, who 
had been quite ill since her husband’s death and 
who was still frail, were to leave for Pine Lake. 
There Mrs. Jameson was to have charge of the 
rest-house established by a Mrs. S teuton. She 
really needed Polly’s assistance, and the care 
she lavished upon her. Mr. Morris was anx- 
ious to educate Polly, but after Mrs. Morris 
had talked with Mrs. Jameson, and realized 
how much she needed Polly, the plan was 
abandoned for the present. 

There was so much for Polly to do in pack- 
ing their things for Pine Lake, and arranging 
the house for the new tenants that she had but 
little time to realize the impending separation 
from Margery. But Margery realized it 
keenly. “ If only I could go and pack for 
Polly and so be with her,” she would wail. 
“It’s awful having to stay stuck out here like 
some old mummy in a glass case! ” 

It fretted her especially when the time came 


102 MARGERY. MORRIS 

for Polly’s departure that she was not allowed 
to go to the station to say farewell. 

“ To think that I should ever come to this, 
when I have always been so active,” she sighed 
to her father. 

Her father laughed. “ Poor old chip-chop, 
you sound as though you were eighty ! Come, 
I’ll carry you down-stairs, and you can write a 
letter to Polly to reach her almost as soon as 
she gets there.” 

He picked her up in his strong arms and 
carried her down to the little study at the back 
of the house. It was the first time she had 
been below stairs for many weary weeks. 

In honor of Margery’s convalescence, Mrs. 
Morris had brightened the room with gay 
chintzes and fiowering plants in the windows. 

“ Hector has sent you in the finest pot of 
daffodils from the greenhouse,” Mr. Morris 
pointed out, as he deposited Margery on the 
sofa, and poked up the fire. 

“ It would be dear in this little room if only 
Polly were here to run in and talk to me,” 
Margery said despairingly. 

Her father patted her shoulder sympathet- 
ically. “ Yes, Malinda-Maria,” he said, using 


IN THE PINE WOODS 103 


the pet name he reserved for especially tender 
occasions, “ I know it is hard for you, but think 
how bravely Polly is taking her troubles and 
worries.” 

Katie appeared at the door to call him to the 
telephone and he left the room. 

Margery got up and went to the desk. “ I 
mustn't be a whiner-weep when Polly is so 
brave,” she thought as she got out a piece of 
paper, and dipped her pen in the ink. “ But I 
do just wish that someone would come in to 
tell me how she got off.” 

She had trouble in collecting her thoughts. 
After while she got up and went to the 
window. 

“ I think someone might take the trouble to 
come in,” she said half aloud. 

She was staring disconsolately at a patch of 
snow that had lingered in the cold corner on 
the north side of the house. There was a ring 
at the front door-bell and a moment later she 
heard Dick’s cheery voice. 

“ Oh, Dick,” she cried, going out into the 
hall. “Did you see Polly off? Were there 
a lot of boys and girls there? How was she? 
Did she bear up all right? ” 


104 MARGERY. MORRIS 

“ Yes,” answered Dick to all her questions, 
“ and she sent you these,” putting into her 
hands a bunch of violets. “ She had a whole 
lot of stuff given to her, flowers and magazines 
and candy.” 

Margery dragged him back into the study 
with her without giving him time to get off 
his overcoat. “ Now then,” she commanded, 
pointing to a chair by the fire, and sinking 
down herself into a low rocking-chair, “ tell me 
about it. Who was there? ” 

“As I was about to remark when I was 
interrupted,” smiled Dick, taking off his coat 
and throwing it down on the old-fashioned 
lounge, “it is mighty nice to see you again — 
even if you do look a little white and thin. I 
haven’t seen you since you went to work and 
got so ill and gave us such a scare. Well, as to 
Polly, — everyone was there. Sam was there, 
and Sally and Esther and Bill and the rest of 
the crowd. And old Dr. Huston and Teacher 
Rachel, and a lot of Mrs. Jameson’s friends. 
Oh, they had a regular send-off. Great Scott, 
won’t it seem queer not to have Polly? We 
sure will miss her! ” 

Margery stared into the fire and made no 


IN THE PINE WOODS 105 


answer. She was feeling that the bottom had 
dropped out of life now that Polly had gone 
away. 


CHAPTER VII 


PINE TREES AND SHADY PATHS 

The March wind swept through the pine- 
tree tops, bending them sharply. But the sun 
shone down warm on the steps of the cottage 
where Polly sat staring sadly through a clear- 
ing in the pines at the waters of the lake rip- 
pled by the wind. In a clump of shrubbery by 
the veranda a song-sparrow sang its sweet 
canary-like song. 

For her mother’s sake Polly had borne 
bravely the breaking up of the beloved old 
home where she had lived all of her short life 
and where her grandmother and great-grand- 
mother had lived before her. With a courage 
that was almost gay she had said good-bye to 
all her friends, but now that she was settled 
down to the quiet of Pine Lake she bitterly 
missed her happy, care-free home life, and her 
beloved, indulgent father. 

Pine Cottage itself was a cheerful, pretty 
little house, well furnished and comfortable, 
but the five invalid ladies who composed the 
106 


IN THE PINE WOODS 107 


household were depressing. They were tired 
and nervous and querulous, and not in the 
frame of mind to have much sympathy with 
youth, even youth as sorrow-stricken and 
pathetic as was Polly’s. One of them was 
quite young, a tall woman who would have 
been pretty but for her excessive thinness and 
pallor and her bitter, weary expression. Polly 
at first had admired her and had tried to make 
advances, but she found soon enough that Miss 
Stanley was the most faultfinding and hard 
to please of them all. 

Bravely trying to make the best of things, 
Polly ran errands with cheerful alacrity until 
her feet grew as heavy as her heart; bore with 
outwardly serene patience the comments and 
suggestions about her appearance and man- 
ners, and learned to move and speak so quietly 
that not even the lightest of nappers had her 
rest disturbed. Mrs. Jameson was too crushed 
and sad to bear many burdens and Polly tried 
in every way she could to stand between her 
mother and the world, to help her with the 
housekeeping, and to keep the accounts, and 
most of all to sustain the courage that almost 
fell under the weight of grief. 


108 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ We’ll just have to bear it, Mother,” she 
would say, twining her arm around her 
mother’s waist. “ Father would want us to be 
brave, I know. Don’t you remember how it 
worried him and made him unhappy for either 
of us to cry or be upset? 

“ And as for the practical burdens we’ll just 
have to have courage. Don’t you remember 
how, when the Count of Monte Cristo was 
thrown into the sea, tied up in a sack, he man- 
aged somehow, sack and all, to swim to shore 
and climbing up on the rocks, how he shouted, 
‘ The world is mine ’ ? 

“ Well, what are five cranky ladies to me? 
I’m going to climb up on the rock in spite of 
them and shout, ‘ The world is mine.’ ” 

For all her brave words, Polly often slipped 
away to a quiet spot in the woods where a 
cedar-water stream stole silently along over its 
sandy bed, and there crouched on a fallen tree- 
trunk she would cry her heart out. But only 
the birds and the whispering pines ever knew, 
for her storm of grief over, Polly would wash 
away the tear-stains in the cold, golden-brown 
water of the brook and go back to the house 
calm and smiling. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 109 


She felt especially sad and discouraged this 
March morning and although it was time for 
her to start to school, she lingered on the steps 
leaning her head wearily against the hand-rail. 
The pine-needles at her feet seemed moving, 
and idly Polly leaned forward to investigate. 
A tiny lizard, about six inches long, colored in 
brown with a brilliant blue stripe down each 
side, was crawling through the brown needles, 
brought out from its winter home in the sand 
by the warm spring sunshine. It was a tiny 
pine-tree swift, lineal descendant of the reptile 
monsters that inhabited the earth before man 
came, and which lingers on in the worm fences, 
stone heaps and pine-trees of southern New 
Jersey. 

Some of the girls she knew were afraid of 
the tiny things, or affected to be, but Polly had 
often perched happily on some fence top 
watching with amusement a little swift darting 
at the insect visitors to some gorgeous, orange- 
red blossoms of a butterfly weed growing close 
to the fence. 

“ Dick says the swift has three eyes,” she 
thought idly. “ One on top of its head.” 

She put forth her hand to catch the tiny 


110 


MARGERY MORRIS 


animal by his long scaly tail. With a quick 
turn the swift miraculously disjointed himself 
from his tail and scuttling off, left Polly very 
much astonished with it in her hands. 

Laughing, she remembered that Dick had 
warned her never to catch one so, but to make 
a noose of a long wiry piece of glass, and slip 
it over the little creature’s head. Somehow 
cheered by the funny little thing and its de- 
tachable tail, she rose and went down the 
sandy path toward the road that led to the 
little country school where she was study- 
ing. 

At first it had been decided that Miss 
Martin, the young teacher but lately grad- 
uated from the State Normal School, was to 
give her private lessons after school hours. 
But Miss Martin found that in mathematics 
Polly was not much in advance of some of her 
elder pupils and persuaded her to attend the 
little school. Mrs. Jameson felt that it was 
better for Polly to be away from Pine Cottage 
for part of the day, and so too urged that she 
should go. 

“ It will do you good to have the walk, 
dear,” she had insisted. ‘‘And it will broaden 


IN THE PINE WOODS 111 


your experience to know a little country school 
and the children who go there.” 

So Polly had gone. Miss Martin, seeing 
her an eager scholar, had allowed her to study 
much her own way, and often while the little 
ones were learning their geography lessons she 
took the occasion to coach Polly in Latin. 

This morning as Polly went along the wood- 
land path she tried to keep her mind on her 
algebra and not to think about home and what 
would be happening there this beautiful spring 
morning. She could see the old streets of 
Renwyck’s Town, the fronts of the old red- 
brick, or yellow-painted frame houses, shining 
in the sunshine. Here and there in sheltered 
corners of the old box-bordered gardens the 
snowdrops would be blooming and a hardy 
crocus or two. In the river the shad would be 
‘‘ running ” and the fishermen going out. 
How many spring mornings old Jake, the fish- 
man, would appear with a fresh catch of shad 
for sale and Polly would follow Missouri the 
colored cook out to his wagon to help her select 
the biggest and most silvery-scaled one and to 
stand chatting with Jake in the warm spring 
sunshine. And Jake would have so many 


112 


MARGERY MORRIS 


quaint anecdotes and wise saws that Polly 
would be almost late to school, and catching up 
her books would have to run. And at the 
school gate she would find other boys and girls, 
who, beguiled by the sunshine and spring 
languor, were also almost late. 

The little path of glistening white sand led 
through a thicket of laurel bushes, before long 
to be a mass of pink and white bloom, and out 
to the road by the lake. By the water’s edge 
she stopped, her eyes too full of tears to see 
where she was going. 

“ They are all in school now,” she thought 
forlornly, ‘‘ Dick and Margery and Sam and 
Sally, and all of them. And I’m here alone.” 

Above her head came the shrill brave piping 
of the little tree-frog, the hyla. She glanced 
up, forgetting for the moment, and anxious to 
see if she could discover the queer, ugly, disk- 
toed little gnome. But he remained invis- 
ible, and she could only notice that the damp 
thickets by the stream had suddenly been 
tinted over by a yellow haze. The spice-bush, 
that forerunner of spring, was in flower. She 
paused to look at the tiny yellow blossoms 
nestling close to the bare bro^vn branches and 


IN THE PINE WOODS 113 


to sniff the faint, spicy odor. Breaking off a 
twig or two, and thrusting it in the front of her 
ulster, she went on her way. Beyond the pine 
woods, out in the open country, the maples 
were bursting into crimson tips, and the farm- 
ers were burning piles of dry brush that filled 
the air with a pleasant, faintly acrid smell. 

William would be making a fire like that 
in the garden at home,” Polly thought 
sadly. 

A meadow-lark perched on a fence stake 
was singing, its limpid, simple notes full of 
careless happiness and hope. With its peculiar 
rapid, noiseless action of its wings it flew on, 
lighted on another stake and sang again, its 
song as sweet, as alert, as remonstrating, as 
though it were saying, “ Don’t you under- 
stand? Don’t you see that nice things are 
going to happen? ” 

So Polly read it, at any rate, and with a 
braver heart, she turned down the crossroad 
that led to the school, the dreary, unpainted 
little square building, standing in the middle 
of a hard, bare patch of ground. 

‘‘ Ugh, ugly, ugly,” she sighed. Imag- 
ine if Margery could see me now ! ” 


114 


MARGERY. MORRIS 


With another sigh she opened the sagging, 
battered door and went in. 

In the little vestibule she stopped to take 
off her hat and coat and to hang them up with 
the others already there. Inside the school- 
house it was even drearier than it was outside. 
The door led directly into the schoolroom, a 
good-sized room with larger windows that had 
possibilities of pleasantness. But the wood- 
work was painted an ugly dull pink and was 
mottled and peeling, and the walls were 
papered with a large figured design in dingy 
chocolate-color that had faded in streaks. From 
the windows, which were without shutters or 
shades, a garish light flooded the room, and 
pitilessly revealed every scratch on the little 
old melodeon with a broken-backed dictionary 
on its top, and seemed to search out every de- 
tail of hideousness of the great, circular iron 
stove in the corner. Only a picture of Lincoln 
pinned up back of the teacher’s desk, and the 
scrupulous cleanliness of the room redeemed 
it at all. Polly had already come to appreciate 
its neatness and the price at which it was pur- 
chased, for the young teacher, a pretty girl of 
about twenty, frail and over-anxious, had to 


IN THE PINE WOODS 115 


act as janitor and start the fire and clean the 
room herself. 

The pupils of the school came chiefly from 
the families of the Italian fruit and vegetable 
growers near by and from the children of the 
various employees of the Inn at Pine Lake 
and the boarding-houses as well as from a 
colony of Russian Jews a mile and a half south 
of the lake. The fruit-growers were a thrifty, 
industrious people, living happy, busy lives in 
their queer little houses, painted bright pink or 
blue in imitation of those of the land they had 
left behind them, or sometimes living three or 
four families in one big old Colonial mansion 
that had descended from more prosperous 
days. Polly had noticed their wonderfully 
neat and healthy gardens, where by intensive 
gardening so much was grown in such small 
plots of ground. Early in the spring as it was, 
the strawberry beds were already looking like 
neat green ribbons stretching across fields of 
white sand, the little fruit trees had their 
trunks whitewashed in defense of insects, and 
every inch of ground seemed swept and gar- 
nished. She liked the children in the school, 
too, especially one girl of about her own age. 


116 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Rosa Bonini, a gentle creature whose big 
brown eyes and sweet olive-tinted face re- 
minded her of some of the photogTaphs of the 
old masters that had hung in the drawing-room 
at home. The boys, too, with their snapping 
black eyes and wide grins amused her, although 
she felt that they were rather inclined to be 
too familiar. The little children had already 
made friends with her, and would cluster about 
her at recess, stroking the soft sleeve of her 
blouse, or smoothing the big butterfly bow that 
dangled at the end of her long pigtail. 

Polly had never seen the Russian colony, but 
she had heard that it had been founded by a 
philanthropic New Yorker at the time of the 
Jewish persecutions in Russia when so many 
fled to America, and that there under almost 
ideal conditions, away from the grime and con- 
gestion of the big cities, in cheerful buildings 
in a pleasant country, the clothing was manu- 
factured that later was sold in the New York 
shops. 

But Polly guessed that the old habits of un- 
happiness and unrest were too strong to be 
broken, even in the happy new environment. 
The older boys and girls seemed both aggres- 


IN THE PINE JVJOODS 117 

sive and sullen and only the little children ap- 
peared to her to be normal. These she drew 
about her as she drew the other children, and 
their endless chatter about “ me mudder ” and 
the doings of their families, often made her 
forget her own heartaches. 

The oldest of the girls from the colony, Ada 
Tolschudy, both interested and repelled her. 
About eighteen, small and wiry, with a large 
nose and black eyes that seemed burning with 
scorn and resentment, she revealed force and 
personality. Her father was the superin- 
tendent of the clothing factory, and being bet- 
ter to do than the others of the colony and with 
a hunger for education for himself and his fam- 
ily, he kept Ada at school long after the other 
girls of her age had gone to work. She was 
an apt scholar and Polly was amazed to find 
her far better read than even she herself was. 
Ada had evidently absorbed every book her 
hands had chanced to light on. Few of the 
fruit growers associated with any of the cloth- 
ing colony, but Ada had somehow managed to 
learn Italian, and she went about among the 
fruit farms where she had made herself a wel- 
come visitor. 


118 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Somehow/’ Miss Martin had confided to 
Polly, “ I doubt if she is a very good person 
for them to know. I think that she stirs up 
trouble wherever she goes. And she seems to 
feel so bitter against everyone who is better 
off than she is. She has the idea that she is 
oppressed and held down. Though I really 
think that anybody who tried to oppress Ada 
Tolschudy would have a pretty hard job 
of it!” 

As Polly sat down at her desk, Rosa Bonini 
held out an orange to her. “ My uncle,” she 
said softly, “ he senda me this. He hasa da 
fruit store.” 

Polly smiled her thanks, and put the orange 
away in her desk until recess should come. AlS 
she put down the desk lid she caught Ada 
Tolschudy’s eye, Ada turned her head away 
with a jerk and scowled at the blackboard. 
Polly felt a little nervous shiver go down her 
back as though something in Ada’s expression 
were an augury of unhappiness or misfortune. 

“Nonsense, what a goose I am,” she thought, 
annoyed at herself, and with a shrug opened 
her Latin grammar and began to study. 


CHAPTER VIII 


DISCOURAGEMENT 

A FLOCK of red-winged blackbirds, brilliant, 
shining black with scarlet epaulets, settled 
down on the lawn. Margery, well wrapped 
up in a steamer chair in a sunny corner of the 
brick terrace by the library windows, watched 
them with envious interest. She felt so tired 
and languid and the flight of the birds seemed 
so easy. 

“ Wouldn’t you love to be a bird and fly? ” 
she asked little Benjamin Ball, who had come 
to call upon her. 

“ I’d rather be an elephant and pick up pea- 
nuts with my nose,” answered Benjie, not 
raising his eyes from the fairy-book he had 
found more absorbing than Margery’s society. 

Margery laughed, and screwing round in her 
chair, watched her father and mother as they 
walked slowly up and down the path that led 
to the garden gate. They had been often of 
late lost in some deep, serious talk, but so list- 
119 


120 


MARGERY MORRIS 


less and self-absorbed had Margery been that 
to-day for the first time it occurred to her to 
wonder what they were talking about. 

“ Is anything wrong? ” she thought anx- 
iously. 

Crawling out of the four steamer rugs, two 
carriage robes and an overcoat with which her 
father had anchored her to the chair she rose 
shakily to her feet and stole across the grass 
to her parents. 

“ Hello,” she gasped rather huskily into 
their ears. 

They turned with a start. “ Hello, dar- 
ling,” her mother answered hastily. ‘‘ We 
were just speaking of you.” 

“ Saying, I hope,” returned Margery, hang- 
ing onto her father’s arm, “ that ‘ dear little 
Margery is such an angel child that she really 
needs a larger allowance and that it’s a shame 
to warp her sweet disposition by making her 
eat porridge and take tonics.’ ” 

‘‘ We were saying,” teased Mr. Morris, 
“ what a splendid thing it would be for Mar- 
gery if she were to get up every morning at 
five o’clock and help Peter to milk the cows. 
And then of course she ought to cook the 


IN THE PINE WOODS 121 


breakfast. And what a good thing an exclu- 
sive diet of corn-meal mush would be for 
her.” 

“ I will if you will,” Margery laughed. 
“ Especially the corn-meal mush part,” she 
added, well knowing that after a memorable 
hunting trip on which supplies had been re- 
duced for some time to corn-meal, her father 
had had little liking for that delicacy. 

Mrs. Morris beamed. “ You are getting 
better,” she declared. 

But Mr. Morris had grown suddenly seri- 
ous. “ What we were saying, Margery, was 
how happy and protected you are here, and 
how different is the fate of so many girls in 
war-torn Belgium and France.” 

Margery sighed. “ Oh, dear,” she said, 
“ can’t we forget that old war for a little while? 
Listen to that song-sparrow instead.” 

Her father smiled absently. “ The war 
won’t let us forget it.” 

They strolled on to the garden and stood 
looking in over the gate. In sheltered corners 
the forsythia was already yellow and the cro- 
cuses were gayly yellow and purple in the grass 
borders. 


122 


MAllGERY MORRIS 


“ I declare, there's a daffodil in bloom,” cried 
Mrs. Morris. “ ‘ The daffodil that takes the 
winds of March before the swallow dares.’ 
Spring is here at last.” 

“And I’m going back to school next week,” 
declared Margery suddenly. 

“ That depends,” protested her mother. 

“ Oh, Mother! I just can’t stand it! I’m 
so tired of doing nothing. It’s awful to just 
sit around the house all the time and do nothing 
but coddle one’s self. Besides, I am ever so 
well now. See how strongly I’m walking,” 
and Margery inflated her chest and strode 
manfully along the path. 

Mr. Morris laughed but did not seem to be 
especially convinced. 

“ Well, then,” said Margery, realizing a lack 
of enthusiasm, “ let’s walk down to the front 
gate and I’ll show you.” 

“ Do you think you’d better, dear? And 
what about Benjie? ” 

“ Oh, he’s lost in that old book of mine. 
He’s all right. Mother — ^he’s well wrapped 
up.” 

It was pleasant in the March sunshine and 
Margery had two willing arms to lean upon; 


IN THE PINE WOODS 123 


nevertheless she was tired by the time she had 
reached the gate at the end of the avenue and 
the walk back to the house seemed endless. 
To her relief, just as they reached the portico 
steps she spied Esther and Sally turning in at 
the gate and she was able to slip into her chair 
without confessing how tired she felt. 

Hello, girls,” she beamed. “ I can’t be- 
gin to tell you how glad I am to see you.” 
And she smiled all the more cordially because 
of the small joke that she kept to herself. 

Esther had brought a letter from Polly. 
Margery took it and spread it out on her knee 
to hide the fact that her hand trembled from 
weakness. “ Now, Margery,” she told her- 
self sternly, “ just because you’re a little tired 
you mustn’t say die yet.” 

She bent her head over the letter. “ Dear- 
est girls,” it began, “ here I am, the funniest 
looking thing after the dirtiest ride yOu can 
imagine. The little old train was so hot from 
a huge stove in one corner of the car that we 
had to open the window; and then the cinders 
came in. They settled into deep shadows un- 
der my eyes, with the result that in spite of lots 
of scrubbing, I look like the lady in Steven- 


124 


MARGERY MORRIS 


son’s ‘ St. Ives,’ ‘ no what you would call bonny, 
but aye pale, penetratin’, and interestin’.’ ” 

It was a brave little letter but the girls were 
able to read between the lines the depression 
and loneliness. They discussed it for a while, 
even fly-away Sally, sympathetic and subdued, 
then as Esther was due at home to coerce her 
little brother Jimmie into the bathtub, and to 
bed, if not to sleep, and as Sally had two days’ 
undone lessons hanging over her head, the 
visitors left. After they had gone, Margery 
sat thoughtfully looking at a great white cloud 
that appeared to be resting on the elm-tree by 
the gate, and thought of Polly. How often 
she had seen her and her old horse Spy turn in 
at that gate. And now Polly was at Pine 
Lake and lonely, and she was here and 
lonely. 

“ I wish that there was something I could 
do for her,” she thought, “ something really 
big.’’ 

Time hung heavily on Margery’s hands and 
she had trouble in amusing herself. Her eyes 
were weak after her illness, and she could not 
read for any length of time. Besides, she had 
been read to until she had mental indigestion. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 125 

“ IVe read stories and stories and stories,” she 
cried one afternoon when her grandfather had 
suggested that she read something. “ My 
mind feels all frothy.” 

“ Rest a while from reading then,” her 
grandfather had counselled. “ And then try 
Stevenson’s ‘ Kidnapped.’ Its clear bracing 
wholesomeness will restore your mind as much 
as the Highlands he writes of would restore 
your body.” 

“ Why don’t you do something — er — ^well, 
domestic, Angel-lamb,” suggested her father, 
puffing thoughtfully at his pipe. “ That would 
be good for you. You might make a cake, or 
a dress, or a — or a bonnet, you know,” he fin- 
ished vaguely. 

“ There is lovely, lovely pink lawn up- 
stairs, Margery,” remarked her mother. 
“ You can have that for a frock to make. I’ll 
help you cut it out and fit it and you can do the 
sewing.” 

But even with her mother’s and Sarah’s help, 
Margery grew tired over her sewing. The 
needle seemed a special instrument invented 
solely to torture weary fingers, and her nerves 
became as ruffled as the frock was intended to 


126 


MARGERY MORRIS 


be. The doctor, finding her flushed and ex- 
cited over “ those horrid old gore things,” 
forbade any more dressmaking. 

So with her music; piano and nerves jangled 
together, and when under Kiley’s directions 
she undertook to increase her knowledge of 
cooking, she flavored her pies with salt tears, 
and grew faint over veal cutlets. “ Culinary 
culture,” as her father took to calling it, was 
disposed of by parental decree, and she decided 
to turn her attention to gardening, 

“ The ground is still damp,” objected the 
doctor. “ I won’t have any gardening, my 
dear. If you want to make mud pies you’ll 
have to go down to Atlantic City and play on 
the beach with your bucket and shovel,” 

‘‘ I’m much too old for that sort of thing,” 
declared Margery loftily to the doctor’s back 
as he hurried off. 

“ Cheer up, Kitty-cat,” laughed her father, 
“ we’ll have to send you away, and get those 
pretty eyes so that they can see a joke again — 
even harmless little jokes like the good doc- 
tor’s,” 

But the trip to Atlantic City failed through 
a heavy storm that kept her cooped up in the 


IN THE PINE WOODS 127 


big hotel where she grew bored and listless. 
When the sun appeared at last and she ven- 
tured out, the damp sea-winds depressed her, 
and she wrenched her ankle getting out of a 
wheel-chair on the board walk. 

“ There isn’t one solitary thing on earth that 
I can do,” she told Dr. Huston solemnly the 
day after her arrival home. “ Think of any- 
one going to Atlantic City and not having a 
good time! You might just as well let me go 
back to school. I won’t be any worse off 
there than I am anywhere else.” 

The doctor took off his glasses and thought- 
fully tapped the end of his nose with them. 
“ Yes,” he said at length, “ we might try it, 
and if that doesn’t do, you will have to have a 
more radical change of climate. I’d have sent 
you off long ago, if it hadn’t been for your 
father’s plans, er — er — ^what do you hear from 
Polly? ” he finished abruptly. 

If the doctor had doubts about school, Mar- 
gery had none and it was with high hopes that 
she set off the following Monday morning for 
the red-brick building of the Renwyck’s Town 
Friends’ School. 

As the car stopped at the gate, Sally Wat- 


128 MARGERY MORRIS 

son spied her and with a cry, “ There’s Mar- 
gery,” came flying out to meet her. 

Sam Bennet followed, and behind him came 
Dick in his usual calmly deliberate fashion. 

“ It’s so perfect to be back,” Margery found 
herself saying again and again to teachers and 
scholars. 

But as the morning wore on and she found 
her strength growing less and less, she began 
to doubt its perfection. The long stairs up 
which she had been used to skip unconcernedly 
twenty times a day seemed a veritable Matter- 
horn to climb, and their descent was such a 
strain on wobbly knees and a head that would 
swim dismalh^ that she would have been almost 
willing to have parted with one of her pretty 
front teeth, or half of her curls, for the privi- 
lege of sliding down the banisters. 

Fortunately she was not asked to recite in 
any of her classes but was able to sit back 
with a strained smile, intended to represent 
alert and intelligent interest. 

“ I’ll never be able to catch up, never, 
never,” she whispered to Dick. “ Never.” 

“Hmmm?” answered Dick absently. He 
was absorbed in scanning a difficult verse of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 129 

Virgil which he firmly believed the malicious- 
ness of fate would force him to translate in 
class. 

Margery’s eyes filled with tears, and she 
gathered her books together with trembling 
hands as she made ready once more to toil up 
the stairs. She was not one of those sensitive 
mortals whose hurt feelings must bounce up 
like a Jack-in-the-box at all times and places 
to complicate life for themselves and others, 
but to-day she felt strangely upset by Dick’s 
apparent indifference. 

She grew more and more weary as the morn- 
ing wore on, and at the twelve o’clock recess 
she was only saved from the ignominy of 
bursting into tears before everyone by escap- 
ing to the seclusion of the back hall before 
anyone spied her but Teacher Rachel. 

“ Thee is too tired, child,” said Teacher 
Rachel, substituting her own dainty lavender- 
scented handkerchief for the drenched square 
of linen with which Margery was mopping her 
eyes. “ I’m going to telephone for thy car to 
come and get thee.” 

A brief spin home in the car, and Margery, 
tired and dazed, found herself in bed almost 


130 


MARGERY MORRIS 


before she knew what had happened. “ It’s 
all right,” she murmured to her anxious 
mother; “ I’ll be better to-morrow.” 

The next morning she did seem so much 
better that it was decided she might make an- 
other attempt at school. 

But the second day was even more of a fail- 
ure than the first, and by half-past eleven Mar- 
gery was rolling home in the car, thoroughly 
dismayed. 

“ It’s so — so — ignominious,” she wailed to 
the doctor when he came in to inspect her that 
afternoon. 

“ Better be ignominious than dead,” replied 
the doctor cheerfully. 

“ Oh, doctor, I’ve got to get back. I can’t 
lose so much school ! ” 

“ Time isn’t ripe yet. Better to wait for 
things until they get ripe. Now a peach is 
delicious fruit — ^when it’s ripe. But it’s hard 
and sour when it’s green. That’s the way with 
lots of things in life — fine when they are ripe — 
but no use having until then.” 

That the doctor had discussed the matter 
further with her father and mother grew ap- 
parent to Margery when she found them busy 


IN THE PINE WOODS 131 


over railroad folders and advertisements of 
southern health resorts. 

“ It isn’t a bit of use taking me south,” she 
sighed, picking up a picture of a purple- 
cheeked young woman smirking at a young 
man in checked riding breeches. “ I’ll never 
look like that female, so what’s the use? ” 

“ The doctor thinks it would be better for 
you to be in a milder climate,” answered Mrs. 
jNIorris, her pretty young face looking rather 
drawn and worried. “ Then you can be out 
of doors all the time. We haven’t decided 
where we ought to go — but these advertise- 
ments of Asheville look attractive.” 

With a little reviving interest, Margery 
picked up another booklet. “ I suppose it 
might be rather nice to get away,” she said 
listlessly. 

Later in the day she went into her mother’s 
room. “ Do you know. Mother,” she began, 
sitting down on the bed, “ that I am beginning 
to get excited about going away. No, really, 
I’m not rumpling the counterpane. I’m sit- 
ting do'wn very carefully. Perhaps I would 
feel better if I got away from Renwyck’s 
To^vn.” 


132 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Yes, dear, I am sure you would,” answered 
Mrs. Morris, noting with a fresh pang of 
anxiety Margery’s pale cheeks and air of 
languor. “ I ought to have taken you south 
before this — the doctor wanted it. I reproach 
myself that I didn’t do it. But so many 

things — I was torn both ways ” Her 

broken sentences stopped irresolutely. 

Margery drew up her knees and clasped her 
hands around her ankles in a favorite if in- 
elegant attitude. “ Do you know,” she said, 
“ what I’d like to do down south? I’d like to 
ride horseback again. I think I’d feel lots 
better if I could get on a horse. Couldn’t 
Papa get horses, and then we could ride to- 
gether? It will be fun to be such a lot with 
Papa, won’t it? Somehow, with school and 
everything, I haven’t been the chums with 
Papa this winter that I’d expected to be. And 
he is such a sweet lamb. Mother. The sweet- 
est, lambiest kind of a lamb.” 

“ Sweet lamb,” laughed Mrs. Morris. 
“ What a disrespectful way to speak of your 
father, child! ” 

‘‘ Well, you know he is the sweetest father 
anybody ever had.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 133 


Mrs. Morris’s hands trembled slightly as she 
put down the pile of freshly laundered clothes 
she had been mending. 

“ Margery, dear,” she said slowly, “ Papa 
won’t be able to go down south with us.” 

“ Oh, Mother, why not? Can’t he leave 
business? It would do him lots of good.” 

“No, dear, it isn’t that. I haven’t said any- 
thing to you about it before for various rea- 
sons. But it has finally been definitely de- 
cided that Papa is to go to France.” 

“To France? Why, Mother! He can’t 
go to France — there’s a war there!” 

“ Yes, dear, that is why he is going.” 

Margery stared at her mother with horror- 
stricken eyes. “ Oh, Mother, he isn’t going 
to fight ? ” she whispered. 

“ No, dear; to drive an ambulance. There 
is so much suffering. And we must do what 
we can to help. Your father is one of those 
who can help. We are not dependent upon 
him for money, and his business does not need 
him just now. I know how he feels — and — and 
— I sympathize. But, oh, Margery — it is hard 
to say ‘ go.’ ” 

With a despairing gesture of her hand. Mar- 


134 


MARGERY MORRIS 


gery threw herself forward and buried her head 
in the pillow. “ I feel,” she said in a strangled 
voice, “ as though the bottom were always 
dropping out of life.” 


CHAPTER IX 


LETTERS 

The post-office of Pine Lake was a quaint 
little place. Above it a great red maple 
stretched its limbs, and close to its gray- 
shingled walls crept laurel and spice bushes. 
The road that skirted the lake passed it, but 
Polly had discovered a little path that wound 
from the cottage through the woods to the little 
bridge just at the right of the post-office. The 
little path led through a thicket of flowering 
spicewood and low-growing oaks, their tiny 
spring leaves brilliant as any flowers, dark 
hollies and laurel, past a narrow creeping cedar 
water stream and a tiny bog where later the 
sweet swamp magnolia would bloom. In a 
sheltered nook she had discovered a great 
clump of arbutus coming into flower. “ When 
the arbutus is really out,” she would say to 
herself, “ I’ll send some to Margery.” 

Inside the post-office was a tiny store, where 
post-cards and a few groceries could be bought, 
135 


136 MARGERY. MORRIS 

as well as some candies of ancient lineage and 
long descent. 

One morning after school Polly strolled 
along the path to the post-office. It was one 
of those warm days that come so unexpectedly 
in the early spring, when the sun shines down 
with the heat of June and the sky is brilliantly 
blue and cloudless. Winter clothes are too 
heavy and spring ones have not yet been 
bought or unpacked from cedar chests. And 
beyond the physical discomforts one feels rest- 
less and vaguely unhappy. 

Polly felt languid and with her languor 
there was a restlessness. Her black frock de- 
pressed her, and she was homesick. “ If only 
I could get back to Renwyck’s Town,” she 
sighed. “ If only I could get away from Pine 
Lake.” 

To comfort herself she tried to make herself 
believe that her homesickness was only spring 
restlessness. She remembered the quotation 
on the picture of the Canterbury Pilgrims that 
hung in the dining-room at home. “ In time 
of spring when langen folk to gang on pil- 
grimages.” 

“ If only something would happen. I wish 


IN THE PINE WOODS 137 


there were fairies — and that one would come 
along and offer three wishes to me.” 

She stopped to watch a leaf floating down 
the little stream, then she went on to the post- 
office, where she found a number of letters for 
Pine Cottage waiting in the box. Dutifully 
she took them back to the cottage and put them 
in the letter-box by the hall door, but her own 
letters she slipped into her sweater pocket 
without opening them. 

Letters had been her consolation and joy, 
but to-day she felt that she could scarcely 
stand them. They would tell of things at 
home ; school and the boys and girls, and of the 
good times in which she had no share. When 
the afternoon session of school was over, per- 
haps, and the day was cooler, she would be 
able to open and read them. 

The last stretch of the walk to the school 
was unshaded and hot, and Polly was warm 
and discouraged when she entered the stuffy 
little schoolroom and took her place at her 
desk. The sun glared in at the unshaded win- 
dows; the children were restless, and as Polly 
looked about her at the dark foreign faces — 
so different from the aristocratic young people 


138 MARGERY. MORRIS 

with whom she had hitherto gone to school — 
a passion of disgust seized her. How she 
hated it all: Ada Tolschudy’s brilliant red 
waist that seemed all the redder this warm day; 
Rosa Bonini’s munching of fruit behind her 
book while the juice dripped down the front 
of her dress; Guiseppe Bellini’s wide, im- 
pudent grin. In the corner two boys laughed 
and talked regardless of Miss Martin’s re- 
peated requests for quiet, and in the front of 
the room the little children squirmed uneasily, 
and the smallest of them burst into tears be- 
cause the boy next to him had taken his pencil. 
Polly looked up impatiently. Why didn’t 
Miss Martin put a stop to all this noise and 
confusion? Teacher Rachel would have had 
the room quiet in just about two minutes. 
Why didn’t Miss Martin stop it? 

She glanced frowningly toward the teacher’s 
desk. Miss Martin pushed her hair wearily 
off her forehead, and Polly noted how white 
and tired she looked. 

“ Poor thing,” she thought compassionately, 
“ she has one of those dreadful headaches she 
told me she gets sometimes. If it is bad here 
for me, it’s twenty times worse for her.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 139 


Slipping quietly to the front of the room, 
Polly drew near to Miss Martin’s desk. 

“ It’s awful in here,” she began. 

“ Well, I can’t help it,” Miss Martin 
snapped. “ You’ll just have to stand it.” 

“ The children are so restless,” Polly went 
on. 

Miss Martin suspected criticism. ‘‘ Of 
course they are in this heat,” she said sharply. 
“ I wish you would go back to your desk and 
not come to me making a fuss over nothing.” 

For a moment the relationship of teacher 
and pupil was lost and they were simply two 
tired and nervous young girls. 

Polly flushed. ‘‘ I was just going to sug- 
gest,” she said with dignity, “ that I take the 
little ones outside and tell them stories or teach 
them. That will give you a chance to manage 
the older ones in here. To look after them is 
a big enough job for one person on a day like 
this.” 

Miss Martin’s face relaxed. “ Oh, would 
you do that? ” she sighed. “ It would be such 
a help.” 

She leaned forward and with her hand on 
her bell ordered the younger children out of 


140 


MARGERY MORRIS 


the room. The older ones she told to draw 
near the desk for a history lesson. 

Out-of-doors Polly found there was no spot 
on the hard, bare school-ground where they 
could sit in comfort, and the sun broiled down 
on the school steps. Across the road in an 
angle of the worm fence around a field stood 
an ancient juniper tree with a log under it. 
Hither Polly marshalled her young charges 
and with them close about her began her story. 

It was cooler here and peaceful, and the 
children with their big or dark eyes fixed upon 
her were appealing. The Bonini boy climbed 
into her lap and went to sleep with his dark 
head against her shoulder. Polly, gathering 
him closer in her arms, thought how much he 
looked like the bambinos in the old masters. 
Beside her on the log sat a little Russian 
Jewess, her dark curls standing out like a cloud 
about the vivid little face, radiant with this 
new departure from school routine. 

“ You know so, it is wonderful to know,” 
she murmured, and Polly forgot her loneliness 
and depression, the heat and languor, in a 
thrill of pleasure. 

She actually found herself feeling sorry 



IT WAS COOLER HERE AND PEACEFUL. 






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IN THE PINE WOODS 141 


when school was over. Ada Tolschudy joined 
her and walked down to the turn of the road. 
She talked bitterly about the “ rich ” ; somehow 
the rich were responsible for all the discom- 
forts she endured from the heat and depression 
of the day. For, she pointed out, were not the 
“ rich ” flying about the countryside cool and 
at ease. It was only their selfishness, she 
seemed to think, that kept her from having a 
motor, too. “ They don’t want nobody to have 
nothing, the rich don’t,” she grumbled. “ They 
just want it all for themselves. But wait un- 
til the poor people get things into their own 
hands — then they will have everything, and 
the rich won’t have anything! ” 

Polly roused herself from the thoughts that 
were absorbing her mind. “ Won’t they be 
just as bad as the rich are now? ” she laughed. 

Ada made no answer but went on with her 
grumbling, most of it now in an undertone. 

At the crossroads she left and Polly hurried 
down the path until she came to a quiet nook 
where a great fallen tree lay beside one of the 
innumerable little streams of cedar water 
emptying into the lake. Here she plumped 
down and drew the letters from her pocket, — 


142 


MARGERY MORRIS 


she felt like reading them now. She opened 
Margery’s letter first and spread it out on 
her knee. 

“ Polly, dear,” it began, “ I should have an- 
swered your dear letter before this, but so 
much has been happening. In the first place, 
when I tried to go back to school, I wasn’t 
well enough. You can’t imagine how awfully 
I felt! Finally, when I burst right out cry- 
ing in class like a big baby, the doctor said that 
I would have to give up all attempt at study- 
ing and go away from Renwyck’s Town. We 
were going down to Asheville — but then, oh, 
Polly, dear, what do you suppose — it has been 
decided that Papa is to go to France to drive 
an ambulance. You know how he and Mamma 
feel about the war, and I suppose that it is 
the right thing for him to do. It’s awfully 
brave of him, isn’t it? By the time this reaches 
you he will have started. 

“ Now for my other piece of news. Some- 
how, with Papa away,I haven’t the heart to go 
down to Asheville, and Mamma doesn’t want 
to be so far away from Grandpapa, either. So 
I have persuaded the doctor — what do you 
think? — to let me go to Pine Lake, and so be 


IN THE PINE WOODS 143 


near you! We ’phoned over to the Inn there, 
and engaged rooms, and we are going over 
there on Thursday. And, oh, Polly, it will 
be so nice to be with you! I have missed you 
so, I ” 

Polly did not wait to finish the letter. It 
was enough that Margery was coming to Pine 
Lake. She was to come on Thursday — to-day 
was Thursday, and it was already growing late 
in the afternoon! Perhaps she was already at 
the Inn. Polly jumped to her feet and began 
to half run, half slide along the path, slippery 
with pine-needles. The Inn was on the other 
side of the club-house, beyond the club-house. 
Stopping at Pine Cottage just long enough to 
call the good news in through the open door 
to her mother, she hurried on her way. 

She was quite breathless by the time she 
reached the driveway of the Inn. After the 
glare of the sunshine, the big hotel hallway, 
with its dark polished floor and old mahogany 
furniture seemed very dim, and she had almost 
to feel her way to the desk at the opposite end. 

“Are Mrs. Morris and her daughter here 
yet?” she gasped to the businesslike young 
woman sitting there. 


144 MARGERY MORRIS 

The young woman calmly inspected the 
ledger. “ Yes,” she said, “ just as though the 
Morrises weren’t anybody at all,” Polly 
thought indignantly. 

“ Yes,” went on the young woman, touch- 
ing a bell, “ they came half an hour ago.” 

A white-capped maid appeared, and as 
Polly explained her errand led the way up a 
low winding flight of stairs and down a long 
corridor lined on either side with white doors, 
to a room at the end. 

“ Come in,” cried someone as the maid 
knocked. 

The maid opened the door and withdrew. 

Polly stepped into a big airy room, the wide 
windows of which gave a vista of the lake, 
ruffled down by a sudden little breeze passing 
over it. Anxiously she looked about her. 
Where was Margery? 

There was the flash of a pink kimono in the 
doorway of the next room, and a soft cry. A 
warm cheek was pressed to hers and she found 
herself in Margery’s loving arms. 


CHAPTER X 


STUMBLING-BLOCKS AND STEPPING-STONES 

“ Polly/’ said Mrs. Jameson, coming out 
to the veranda, “ you really must stop crack- 
ing those nuts with your teeth, at once. Really, 
dear, after the care I have always taken of 
your teeth for you to do a thing like that! ” 

‘‘ It’s very imgrateful, isn’t it? ‘ Sharper 
than a serpent’s tooth is an ungrateful child.’ 
Perhaps it would be more to the point if I 
said. Sharper than a serpent’s tail is a toothless 
child.” 

Mrs. Jameson laughed, and sat down on the 
step beside her tall daughter. “ I believe Mar- 
gery has done you good; you seem more like 
the old Polly.” 

“ Isn’t it wonderful,” said Polly thought- 
fully, trying to crack a nut with the heel of 
her shoe, “ how just one person can change a 
whole place for one? Margery has made Pine 
Lake over for me.” 


145 


146 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Poor Margery/’ sighed Mrs. Jameson, 
“ it must be very hard on her to be so inact- 
ive.” 

Margery was still frail and weak, and a 
large part of her days had to be spent lying in 
a steamer chair in a sheltered corner of the Inn 
veranda, where she could breathe the sweet 
resinous air of the pine woods, and listen to 
the soughing of the gentle wind in the tall 
trees. As soon as school was over Polly would 
hurry to her, and then if the day were fine they 
would go for a stroll around the lake and along 
the little woodsy paths where the wild flowers 
were springing. Now and then they would go 
rowing on the lake in the clumsy white-painted 
boat belonging to the Inn, or if the day was 
cold they would sit in Margery’s big sunny 
bedroom where the windows opened on the lake 
and dark pines beyond, and Mrs. Morris would 
read aloud while the girls knitted sweaters and 
mittens for the Belgian children. 

As Margery grew stronger she drifted into 
the habit of walking dovm the road to meet 
Polly at the close of school. Occasionally she 
went a little early, and slipping quietly into 
the schoolhouse would wait on one of the back 


IN THE PINE WOODS 147 


benches for the last recitation to be over. Her 
coming was always hailed as something of an 
advent by the scholars, who regarded her, with 
her yellow curls and her daintiness, as some- 
thing of a princess. After school was over 
the littlest ones would cluster about her, 
squabbling among themselves for the privilege 
of holding her hand. The older children were 
more reserved, and Ada eyed her with open 
suspicion. 

However, Ada always wanted to walk home 
with Polly and IMargery, when she would pour 
out the bitterness of her soul. 

“Look how the rich keep us down!” she 
would cry to ears that were too busy listening 
to the song-sparrows to heed her. 

“ Umm, yes,” Margery would reply ab- 
sently. “ Just look at this funny little bird’s- 
foot violet. It’s the first one I’ve seen this 
year.” 

“ That’s always the way with people in this 
stupid, wicked country,” Ada cried vehemently 
one day when Margery was unusually inter- 
ested in the wayside treasures she found. 
“ You think more about flowers and birds and 
stuff like that than you do about your fellow- 


148 MARGERY MORRIS 

beings and their sufferings. You are just as 
bad as everybody else here ! ” 

Margery scarcely heard this slap at herself 
in her indignation at the term, “ stupid, wicked 
country.” 

“ Don’t you love your country? ” she cried. 

“ How can you love a country if it isn’t 
lovely? ” 

“ Not lovely? America not lovely? ” Mar- 
gery opened amazed eyes. “ Why, it’s per- 
fectly lovely. It’s the most wonderful coun- 
try in the world! ” 

“ Oh, yes, for you rich people, but not for 
the poor. What does it do for us? Not one 
earthly thing — ^you rich people get everything, 
education and comfort and everything.” 

“You get education,” answered Margery 
with dignity. “ Unless I happen to be very 
much mistaken, you are on the way home from 
school now.” 

“ Yes,” cried Ada, “ what kind of a school 
is it? That ugly, dreary little building. You 
wouldn’t go to a school like that I ” 

“ I go,” interposed Polly. “ And Margery 
isn’t strong enough to go to any school just 
now.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 149 

“And what do you do for the school? ” ques- 
tioned Margery. “ What do you do to make 
it better? Or even to make it look nice? 
Nothing but throw peanut shells on the floor! 
I saw you do that very thing to-day. If peo- 
ple can’t take care of what they have they can’t 
expect to get something better.” 

Ada murmured something inarticulate. 

“And what do you do for your country be- 
sides grumbling at it? ” 

“ It doesn’t do much for me,” returned Ada 
sullenly. 

“ It gives you an education free, for one 
thing,” put in Polly. “ That’s one thing the 
country you despise so much does for you. 
Mrs. Morris is reading Mary Antin aloud to 
us. You just ought to hear about the way 
Mary Antin couldn’t get any education in 
Russia at all.” 

Margery lifted her head proudly. She felt 
that Polly had fairly cornered Ada now. 

Ada was silent for a moment. “ Oh, well,” 
she said at length, shrugging her shoulders, 
“ maybe you can do something to make things 
better; you’re rich. I can’t do anything.” 

“ You can do just as much as we can. Every 


150 


MARGERY MORRIS 


bit as much. Look at Lincoln. He was poor 
and unknown, and yet when he went to New 
Orleans as a boy and saw a slave girl there be- 
ing sold, he said, ‘ If ever I get a chance to hit 
that thing, I’m going to hit it hard.’ And 
look what he did! ” 

“ I love the countree,” put in Rosa Bonini 
in her gentle voice. “ But there is mooch I 
do not understand. Is there any way I can 
learn to understand? It is so hard in America 
to understand. It is so mooch different in 
Italy. What is right in Italy is not right here 
and they laugh at me.” 

“ They laugh at you because they think 
they’re smart,” said Ada. “ They’re rich ” 

“ I don’t think you understand, Ada,” in- 
terrupted Margery, “ not even as much as 
Rosa does.” 

They had reached the crossroads and the 
four girls stopped and looked at one another 
thoughtfully before they parted. Rosa and 
Ada were only conscious of Polly’s and Mar- 
gery’s air of refinement and daintiness; Rosa 
with admiration and Ada with resentment, 
while Margery and Polly regarded the other 
two girls with interest and a certain curiosity. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 151 


“ Isn’t it strange that anybody should have 
such queer ideas as Ada? ” remarked Margery 
as they turned down the path toward the hotel. 
“ Wouldn’t it be depressing to feel so bitter? 
Oh, I hope there is a letter from Dick waiting 
for me when I get back to the hotel. It cer- 
tainly would seem nice after Ada to have a 
little refreshing Renwyck’s Town news.” 

Instead of a letter from Dick, she found old 
Dr. Huston in person. 

“ Oh, doctor,” she hailed him eagerly, “ I’m 
so glad to see you! Now I can go back to 
school.” 

But after the doctor had felt her pulse and 
tested her lungs, had made her say, “Ah, ah, 
ah,” and turned her face toward the light 
streaming in at the big window, and had asked 
her any number of apparently useless ques- 
tions after the manner of doctors, he said 
briskly: 

“Well, little girl. Pine Lake is a pretty 
good sort of place. I think that you would 
better stay here for a while longer. You 
aren’t quite ready for school yet.” 

“ It isn’t fair,” Margery declared the next 
afternoon as she and Polly were drifting about 


152 MARGERY MORRIS 

the lake in the old white boat. “ Everybody 
else but us is strong and doing things. J ane 
and Esther and Dick and Perry and every- 
body. They are all having a fine time. And 
here you and I are stuck down in the woods 
to vegetate.” She stopped and scowled at a 
duck swimming toward land. “ It isn’t fair,” 
she repeated. 

Polly’s sorrow had taught her a gentle pa- 
tience, new to the high-spirited, eager girl. 
“ Do you remember, Margery,” she asked 
gently, “ that day when we went to the woods 
to get Christmas greens? ” 

“Do I?” sighed Margery. “Wasn’t it 
perfect? It seems like a thousand years ago, 
doesn’t it? ” And she dipped her oar so deep 
that a shower of drops spattered over Polly. 

“Whoa there, Margery; don’t drown me! 
Well, do you remember how cold and dark and 
dreary it got in the woods and how the owl 
scared you? ” 

They both laughed and Polly went on. 
“And remember how glad we were to get out 
of the woods and into the open country again. 
We forget that when we look back and only 
remember the nice things.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 153 


“ That’s so,” Margery admitted. “ When I 
look back, I can scarcely remember anything 
but the fun we had.” 

“ Well, that’s the way it will be some day 
about here at Pine Lake. We’ll just remem- 
ber the fun we had ” 

“ Some day, I suppose we’ll howl over Ada 
Tolschudy, and all the fussy ladies at Pine 
Cottage and ” 

But Polly wasn’t through yet. “ Yes, oh, 
yes,” she said vaguely, “ but to go back to that 
day in the pine-barrens. Don’t you remember 
how we talked about the difficulties at that 
time, and how we said that the woods were 
just like life, and that we all had to go through 
them at some time or other? Well, we are in 
the woods now, figuratively and literally. We 
can’t see anything but trees and we can’t realize 
that there are fields and houses out be- 
yond. We’re forgetting, too, how pretty the 
woods are and only thinking of fields and 
houses.” 

Margery tried to turn the boat toward shore, 
and dropped her oar overboard. “ Oh, dear,” 
she cried and reached for it while Polly 
clutched desperately at her skirts. 


154 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ There — I’ve got it,” she observed, straight- 
ening up and fitting the oar back into the oar- 
lock. “ But you know, Polly, to go back to 
the woods — I would like to get out of them, 
figuratively, at any rate, and be well.” 

“ So would I,” said Polly sadly, “ and be 
happy — but some of my happiness can never 
come back, I know.” 

Margery was instantly reproachful. How 
stupid of her to whine over her own little bit 
of ill-health, and having her father away, when 
poor Polly had lost her home and father for- 
ever! She bit her lip, thoroughly angry at 
herself. 

“ Do you know, Polly dear,” she said softly, 
“ I like what you said about the woods ever so 
much. It’s a very good idea. Don’t you re- 
member, too, what Dick said that day? That 
it wasn’t enough to just go bravely through the 
woods — that you must gather something worth 
while there. I wish we could gather some 
treasures here.” 

‘‘ You’re gathering strength,” said Polly, 
trying not to let Margery see that her eyes had 
filled with tears. 

High up in a tree-top near them there was a 


IN THE PINE WOODS 155 


flash of brilliant scarlet and a whistle, sweet 
and clear. 

“ Polly,” cried Margery, “ what is that? ” 

Polly turned and looked up. “ It’s a car- 
dinal — the bird they talk so much about in 
southern stories.” 

They sat gazing up at the bird, feeling some- 
thing of the romance of old southern gardens, 
until with another flash of scarlet it flew away. 

“ Yes,” Margery went on slowly, “ I wish 
that we could learn something or do something 
worth while here in the woods.” 

“ The first thing, I suppose,” said Polly, “ is 
to take things bravely. Don’t you remember 
that Sunday after the day in the woods, when 
we cooked supper at your house? And what 
fun we had over the oysters. How we talked 
about the oyster putting a coat of pearl over 
troubles. We’ll have to be oysters and put a 
coat of pearl over our troubles.” 

They pulled out from shore again and rowed 
down the lake toward the landing by the Inn. 
The little talk had put heart and spirits into 
them both, and they rowed energetically and 
well. 

“ There,” cried Margery gayly, as rosy and 


156 


MARGERY MORRIS 


breathless they drew up beside the little wharf, 
“ we did that in style! ” She climbed out and 
made the painter fast. “ Do you know,’’ she 
laughed as she held out a helping hand to 
Polly, “ we’ll have to be queer freaks of nat- 
ural history — oysters lost in the pine woods, 
and finding our way out. I’m sure all the 
scientists ought to come and investigate us 1 ” 

They both laughed and then they parted; 
Polly to go home to her studying, and Margery 
to the Inn to write letters. 

That one of her correspondents approved of 
the talk the two girls had was evident, for a 
couple of days later a box came from Dick 
addressed to Margery and Polly. With ex- 
cited interest they opened it, suspecting some 
joke, and found a large oyster-shell tied up 
with a spray of pine, and painted with the 
words, “ On with the good work.” 


CHAPTER XI 


PLANS 

The young girl sitting beside Margery on 
the Inn porch put down her knitting and 
laughed self-consciously. “ One of those Wil- 
son boys that came yesterday asked me to give 
him this sock. He said he would wear it next 
his heart. Did you ever hear of anything so 
crazy? But they certainly are giving me a 
rush! ” 

Margery leaned her head back against her 
chair. “ Yes,” she said wearily, “ they are a 
nuisance.” 

The Wilsons, two showy and rather dis- 
sipated-looking boys from New York, had 
tired her by their persistent attentions ever 
since their arrival the morning before. 

The other girl bridled. “ Well, of course,” 
she said loftily, “ a popular girl has boys run- 
ning after her all the time.” 

Margery, realizing that her first speech had 
167 


158 MARGERY MORRIS 

not pleased, politely smiled assent, and said 
nothing. 

“ I always have a lot of boys about me,” 
continued the other girl. “ My cousin says 
she never saw a girl have so many.” 

Somewhat bewildered Margery wondered 
why this girl, some three or four years older 
than herself, should be making so much ado 
over two rather common lads of sixteen or 
seventeen. She herself had found their atten- 
tions annoying and had avoided them as much 
as she could without rudeness. 

“ Yes, I always have a lot of boys about 
me,” repeated the other girl. 

Margery repressed a smile. “ Of course,” 
she thought, with amusement, “ she’s just 
blowing her own horn — that’s what it means.” 

Pretty and always popular herself, Margery 
had never condescended to the constant self- 
advertisement with which so many young girls 
try to establish their attractiveness. 

Now, somewhat bored by the other girl’s 
methods, she sprang to her feet with relief as 
her mother came out of the house. “ Oh, 
Mamma,” she called, ‘‘ where are you going? ” 

“ Just down to the post-office, honey, to mail 


159 


IN THE PINE WOODS 

the letter to your father/’ Twice a week a 
long letter was sent off to Mr. Morris. 

Margery slipped her arm through her 
mother’s. “Why is it, Mamma,” she said 
plaintively, “ that so many girls boast so much 
about how popular they are with the boys? ” 

Mrs. Morris laughed. “ I think that is one 
of the most exasperating things a young girl 
has to stand — that listening to a constant 
stream of self-adulation from other girls. It’s 
such a bore; besides, it is embarrassing. One 
feels the delicacy that the girl ought to feel 
and plainly doesn’t. But perhaps the poor 
souls are only whistling to keep up their cour- 
age. If you notice it is mainly done by the 
girls with big noses or pop-eyes.” 

“ Do you know, you’re awfully comforting 
to talk things over with,” said Margery, giving 
her mother’s arm another affectionate squeeze. 
“ Even little things like being bored by silly 
girls’ boasting. I suppose they do have to 
keep their courage up, though it seems a fool- 
ish way to do it. I like that favorite proverb 
of yours — ‘ to understand everything is to for- 
give everything.’ 

“ By the way,” she added, “ I haven’t seen 


160 M'AEGERY MORRIS 

Polly for two whole days — do you realize 
that? ” 

“ Why, you went to see her yesterday! ’’ 

“ Yes, but she wasn’t home. And she wasn’t 
there the day before, either. And she has 
seemed so mysterious lately over something. 
I think it’s mighty mean of her! ” 

Mrs. Morris laughed again. “ I thought 
somebody was talking just now about the 
beauties of the proverb ‘ to understand all is 
to forgive all.’ Hadn’t we better wait until 
Polly has had a chance to explain before you 
get vexed with her? In the meantime, just 
look at this, dear.” 

She pointed to a hole in a stunted old pine- 
tree, where there were four ugly, almost 
featherless little birdlings in a nest lined with 
grass. 

“Aren’t they ugly?” said Margery, wrin- 
kling a fastidious nose. “ What are they? ” 

“ Bluebirds.” 

“ Oh, Mother, those ugly things! ” 

“ Yes, not until they fly do they develop 
that heavenly deep blue color.” She pointed 
to the father bird hovering anxiously near. 
“ Isn’t he beautiful? ” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 161 

“ Oh, look, Mother,’’ Margery cried, her at- 
tention caught by something that interested her 
more than the bluebird. “ There’s Polly, go- 
ing toward the post-office now! 

“Polly! Polly!” she called, running to- 
ward her, “ wait a minute! ” 

Polly looked startled and tried to hide some- 
thing under her coat. 

“ What are you up to? ” demanded Margery 
as she caught up with her. “ I haven’t seen 
you for two whole days.” 

Polly laughed and blushed. “ Do you 
promise not to tell? ” she said hesitatingly. 
“ Well — well — well — well ” 

“ It ought to be dug by this time,” sug- 
gested Margery. 

“ Well,” began Polly again, “ well ” 

“ Try again.” 

“ Well,” floundered Polly once more, and 
burst out laughing. 

“ Go on,” urged Margery. 

“ I can’t,” answered Polly with another 
burst of giggles. 

“What’s the joke?” asked Mrs. Mor- 
ris, who came up to the two girls just 
then. 


162 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Well,” began Polly again, and both girls 
burst into peals of laughter. 

Mrs. Morris laughed in sympathy, although 
she failed to see the jest. 

“ It’s just this,” explained Polly, as soon as 
she could. “ I’m taking this to the post-office, 
and I couldn’t get the words out somehow to 
explain to Margery.” 

“What is this?” asked Margery, eyeing a 
thick envelope with interest. 

Polly blushed. “ It’s a story,” she said. 
“ I’ve written it, and I’m sending it off to a 
magazine. Wouldn’t it be perfect if they were 
to accept it, and it would bring me in some 
money? ” 

“ Of course they will take it,” declared Mar- 
gery loyally. “ But do let me see it. I’d love 
to, please.” 

“ The envelope is sealed now. But if you 
would like it. I’ll read you one I’m writing. 
Can’t you come back with me? ” 

“ Yes, run along, dear,” smiled Mrs. Morris. 

The long envelope was mailed, and with a 
sigh, and a dramatic, “ My fate is now in the 
lap of the gods,” Polly linked her arm in Mar- 
gery’s and they set out toward Pine Cottage. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 163 


They went straight to the little room in the 
third story that Polly shared with her mother, 
and after she had opened up a big cardboard 
box under the bureau and extracted her story, 
Polly curled up cross-legged on her little cot 
bed and began to read it aloud. 

Margery sat down on the floor with her back 
against the bureau and prepared herself to 
listen and enjoy. 

It was an ambitious story, the vicissitudes of 
a beautiful young girl alone in Paris, and re- 
quired far more knowledge of the world in 
general and of Paris in particular than Polly 
possessed. But Margery knew no more of the 
world or Paris than did Polly, and she was not 
inclined to be critical where her affections were 
engaged. 

“ Oh, Polly,” she exclaimed rapturously, as 
Polly finally bestowed the hand of her poor 
but lovely heroine upon the hero, rich, magnif- 
icently handsome, and of that surpassing dash 
found only in the heroes of lady novelists, 
“ it is simply perfect! It’s certain to be taken! 
Why, I’ve read lots of stories in the magazines 
that weren’t a bit better. And think of the 
money you can make. You’ll get a hundred 


164 


MARGERY MORRIS 


dollars for it, at least, and you can write at 
least one a week like that. Think of it! 
Why, you’ll be back in Renwyck’s Town be- 
fore you loiow it! ” 

In her excitement Margery scrambled up 
from the floor, and walked about the little 
room. Her generous spirit delighted in the 
thought of fame and happiness coming to her 
friend. 

“ Oh, Polly,” she was exclaiming loudly 
again, when there was the rustle of a silken 
skirt, a soft, rapid footfall, and “ What are 
you doing? ” was demanded in a high nervous 
voice. 

The girls turned toward the door to face 
Miss Stanley, whose thin drawn face expressed 
annoyance in every line. 

“ Just reading,” answered Polly guiltily. 

“Well, please don’t read so loud! I was 
trying to write a letter, and all the noise an- 
noyed me so that I simply couldn’t finish it.” 

“ I’m sorry,” murmured Polly, meekly. 
Miss Stanley turned from the door without 
another word, and they could hear the rustle of 
her skirt as she went down the stairs. 

They waited in silence until the rustling 


IN THE PINE WOODS 165 


ceased. “ Isn’t she horrid? ” remarked Polly 
at last, without rancor, and merely as one 
stating a fact. “ Let’s go and finish this out- 
side.” 

The next day the story was considered as 
completely finished and polished and after it 
had been elaborately and neatly copied out in 
Polly’s best handwriting, both girls went to the 
post-office and mailed it together as a sacred 
rite. “ I’m sure it ought to be typewritten,” 
said Margery, as she slipped the long envelope 
into the box. “ I wish we had asked Mamma 
about it before we mailed it.” 

“ It’s too late now,” returned Polly. ‘‘ Be- 
sides, I did think of it, but there is no place 
here where you can get it done. Let’s go for 
a row or take a walk, or do something.” 

‘‘ Let’s go to that place you showed me the 
other day,” suggested Margery. 

They turned up a narrow path, where in a 
thicket of flowering spicewood and low-grow- 
ing oaks, beside a narrow creeping cedar-water 
stream there was a great fallen tree. A group 
of blueberry bushes tossed their fragrant 
clusters of flagon-shaped blossoms over the 
stream, and beyond in a little clearing the tall 


166 


MARGERY MORRIS 


cinnamon fern displayed its developing pale 
green fronds. 

“Isn’t it pretty here?” said Margery ap- 
preciatively as the girls perched on the big log. 
“ To think,” she went on, “ of all the famous 
people I am going to know ! A great writer, — 
that’s you, in case you don’t recognize the 
description — and Jane a great artist, and Dick 
a famous architect.” 

“And Sam a noted admiral,” laughed Polly. 
“ Sam’s so good-natured, though, he’d prob- 
ably hate to hurt the feelings of the enemy by 
fighting with them.” 

“ Everybody will be famous but me,” Mar- 
gery sighed. “ I’ll never amount to a row of 
pins at this rate. I can’t even prepare for col- 
lege when I’m ill all the time. Can’t you see 
me hobbling into college, some day, a dear, nice 
old lady in caps and leaning on a cane? Won’t 
I look fine playing basket-ball with spectacles 
and an ear-trumpet? ” 

“ You could play tennis,” giggled Polly, 
“ and catch the ball in the ear-trumpet.” 

Margery’s attempt at an answering smile 
was so woebegone that Polly hastily sought 
for some means to cheer her. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 167 

“ Remember our talk about the woods? ’’ she 
asked. 

Margery picked a tiny, crimson oak-leaf, 
and listlessly shredded it. ‘‘ Yes,” she said, 
plainly depressed. 

Polly felt discouraged. “ Well,” she said, 
trying to sound very sprightly and cheerful, 
“ remember what we said about trying to find 
some treasures while we are in the woods.” 

“ Yes,” said Margery, “ that’s just where I 
feel blue — there aren’t any treasures to find.” 

Polly felt that it was no use trying to cheer 
Margery up along these lines, so she tactfully 
began to speak of the boys and girls in her 
school. 

“ It’s really pathetic about Ada,” she said. 
‘‘ If there were just some way she could be 
made to understand what America means. She 
really is a nice girl. A whole lot nicer, really, 
and more worth while than that silly girl at the 
Inn that wants to boast about herself and her 
beaux all the time.” 

“ That girl gives me softening of the brain,” 
sighed Margery. “And that pretty Miss Wil- 
liams whom they say has loads of lovers, and 
is always getting big boxes of flowers and 


168 


MARGERY MORRIS 


candy, scarcely ever even speaks of herself! 
She is ever so sweet and sympathetic, and just 
as nice to me as if I were her age.” 

“ I suppose that the ones that really have 
the attention don’t have to blow their own 
horns so much,” remarked Polly sagely. “ But 
to go back to Ada — it does seem a shame that 
she is so bitter, and that she shouldn’t under- 
stand a little better what America means.” 

“ They don’t any of them understand what 
America means,” answered Margery pessi- 
mistically. “ It’s a shame. I wish that 
there was some way of teaching them. I sup- 
pose we might try to teach them a little.” 

“ I suppose we might — but, well 

“ Polly! I have an idea! Let’s try it! ” 

‘‘ Let’s try what? ” 

“ Oh, Polly, don’t you see! Everybody is 
doing something for her country these days. 
Look at Jane — giving all her time out of the 
art school to the Red Cross — of course that 
isn’t exactly just for her country, but it is for 
the world. And other girls are doing it, too — 
lots of them. And Perry is studying aviation 
at college. And look at the way Papa has 
gone to France to help them there — everybody 


IN THE PINE WOODS 169 


is doing something for somebody, except me, 
and I haven’t done a thing for anybody. Be- 
sides if we want to gather treasures here in the 
woods, that would be the very best kind of 
treasures to gather.” 

Margery paused, and with her lips parted 
and her eyes shining sat looking thoughtfully 
at the cedar-water stream. Her depression 
had vanished. 

“ But Margery, I don’t understand — you 
talk so fast and you’ve got everything jmnbled 
up. What treasures are we to gather? ” 

“Why, don’t you see, Polly?” Margery 
cried. “ It won’t be treasures for ourselves. 
It will be for our country, and that’s the best 
kind. We’ll try to help these people — ^these 
foreigners right here — to become better Ameri- 
cans. To teach them what America means. 
To try to make them understand things and to 
take away their bitterness.” 

Polly caught fire at once. “ Oh, Margery, 
how wonderful! Of course I see what you 
mean. Do you know,” solemnly, “ if we can 
just teach those people what America means — 
and incidentally learn ourselves — we won’t 
have spent our time in the woods in vain.” 


CHAPTER XII 


THE SCHOOLHOUSE 

“ Do you know, Polly,” said Margery a day 
or two later as the two girls were rowing on 
the lake, “ it sounds very easy to teach Ada 
about America, but really it’s awfully hard.” 

Polly sighed. “Isn’t it?” she said. “It 
just shows the difference between theory and 
practice.” 

“ Yes,” laughed Margery, “ I can see an- 
other difference between theory and practice — 
in theory you are rowing. In practice you are 
only sending a shower-bath over me.” 

Polly dipped her oar in more carefully. 
“ Like the Laird of Cockpen, my mind is 
‘ ta’en up with affairs of the state.’ I was 
thinking of a far more important subject than 
you, my child, I was thinking how we are going 
to make a good citizen of Ada for Uncle Sam.” 

“ If only she couldn’t talk so hard and fast,” 
Margery lamented. “ She can out-talk me 
170 


IN THE PINE WOODS 171 


any day, and even when I know I am abso- 
lutely right, and could convince her if I got 
a chance, I can’t get a word in sideways.” 

Ada had given a good deal of thought to the 
subject of her new country’s shortcomings, 
and although her arguments were ignorant and 
hysterical, she had a strong pair of lungs with 
which to voice them. And her belief in herself 
and her own judgment was unflagging. 

Margery thoughtfully bunched together 
some of the pine-needles with which she was 
trying to make a basket. “ It seems to me,” 
she said, “ that we will have to begin on Rosa 
and let Ada go for a while.” 

“ It won’t do any good,” Polly objected. 
“ Rosa is absolutely under Ada’s influence. 
They all are, for that matter.” 

‘‘ I suppose the practical thing is to influ- 
ence Ada first and trust to her working on the 
others, but it’s hard work.” 

“ Margery! — has it ever occurred to you that 
there is something queer in the hold Ada has 
over the Boldini family? They seem to cringe 
to her so. It’s uncanny! One might think 
that they had committed some crime, and that 
she had found it out,” 


172 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“Oh, Polly, how awful! No, I never 
thought of such a thing! ” 

“ Perhaps 1 just imagined it. But some- 
times I have felt uneasy as though there were 
something queer behind it all. And as if it 
might bring unhappiness. Don’t you know 
how those queer feelings come sometimes?” 

“ No — I don’t believe I do. I can’t remem- 
ber ever having felt queer about anything like 
that — evil influences and all that sort of thing. 
Perhaps — oh, Polly, do you suppose Ada has 
hypnotized them, or anything like that? ” 

Both girls laughed. In the clean sweet 
open air, with the warm spring sunshine flood- 
ing everything, their talk of malign influences 
sounded absurd even in their own ears. 

“ I tell you what we ought to do. Poll,” said 
Margery, holding her basket up critically to 
inspect it. “We ought to do something to 
that school. Ada talks a lot about how horrid 
and dreary and hideous it is, and she certainly 
is right there.” 

“ But Margery, what could we do? It 
would have to be all repainted and papered, 
and dear knows what. It would cost a lot, and 
the school board probably wouldn’t want to do 


IN THE PINE WOODS 173 


it. They may not think that we are quite as 
important as we think ourselves ! ” 

“We could plant things around it. Then it 
wouldn’t look so dreary from the outside. If 
there were lovely flowery shrubs and vines 
around it the effect would be very different. ’ ’ 

“ But dear child, lovely flowering shrubs and 
vines happen to be very expensive — just read a 
florist’s catalogue sometime.” 

“ Goosie — I don’t mean to go to some stylish 
nursery and order a whole lot of expensive 
shrubs. I mean to go right into the woods 
and dig up laurel and ferns and wild honey- 
suckle, and greenbrier, and transplant them. 
It strikes me we are different from the man in 
the poem, ‘ Water, water everywhere and not 
a drop to drink.’ It’s plants, plants every- 
where, and not sense enough to dig them up.” 

“ Margery,” said Polly solemnly, “ you are 
a genius, I suppose we will have to speak to 
Miss Martin first.” 

Miss Martin was too far sunk in discourage- 
ment to feel much enthusiasm in their plans, 
but she said that they might speak to Mr. 
Beacon, the head of the school board, and ask 
his consent. 


174 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Can you go to-morrow afternoon, Polly? ” 
said Margery as Miss Martin turned to put 
some things in her desk. “ There’s nothing 
like getting at things and making them go ! ” 

Polly glanced at Margery and smiled. This 
seemed more like the old Margery. “ I be- 
lieve you are getting better,” she said. “All 
right, we’ll go to-morrow. You’ll have to tell 
us. Miss Martin, exactly how we get to this 
Mr. Beacon’s house.” 

\Yhen they started out the next afternoon. 
Miss Martin had given them explicit directions 
as to the whereabouts of the little white cottage 
where Mr. Beacon, the village carpenter, who 
was as well head of the school board and elder 
of the little white church at the crossroads, lived 
in bachelor ease and independence. But Mrs. 
Jameson felt uneasy at their going alone. 

“ The path leads through the woods,” she 
demurred, “ and I don’t like your going alone. 
I am always so afraid of your being lost in the 
woods, — it has haunted me ever since I came 
here.” 

But Miss Martin’s directions were so simple 
and explicit that she finally consented to their 
going without her, although she escorted them 


IN THE PINE WOODS 175 

half-way and stood watching them until she 
could see that they were safely through the 
woods and out on the open turnpike. 

“ It would be rather a grewsome experience 
to be lost in these woods, wouldn’t it?” re- 
marked Margery, stopping to look at a scarlet 
tanager perched on a twig of swamp-maple 
and to admire its brilliant scarlet coat and inky 
wings and tail. 

‘‘ Don’t trouble trouble until trouble troubles 
you,” answered Polly. “ What worries me is 
that Mrs. Stenton is coming down to visit Pine 
Cottage sometime before very long.” 

‘‘ Mrs. Stenton? Who is she? ” 

“ Don’t you remember? She is that wealthy 
New York woman who has a big school for 
girls there, and who supports Pine Cottage. 
It is bad enough with those five nervous ladies 
there to find fault with me, without Mrs. Sten- 
ton. Honestly, Margery, I feel scared to 
death at the thought! The only comfort is 
that she adopted a baby, and perhaps she’ll 
bring the baby with her. That might relieve 
things a little.” 

“ The baby will make a lot of noise,” Mar- 
gery comforted her. “And that will take the 


176 


MARGERY MORRIS 


dear ladies’ minds off of you. But honestly. 
Poll, do they really worry you so much? You 
scarcely ever talk about it.” 

“ I try not to think about it. If I got to 
thinking about it, and fussing over it, why then, 
it would come to shut out everything else. You 
know how things grow when you begin to think 
about them.” 

Margery was silent. It seemed wonderful 
to her that Polly should be able so coura- 
geously to put the annoying and unhappy 
things of her life into the background and turn 
a brave and cheerful face to the world. 

“ Polly,” she said slowly, “ do you know 
what I think? I think you’re a perfect won- 
der.” 

Polly pressed her arm affectionally in an- 
swer. “ Now let’s talk about something else,” 
she laughed. “ Our friend Mr. Beacon, for 
instance.” 

Down the quiet road stood the little white 
cottage they were seeking, under a huge tulip- 
poplar tree in bloom. As the girls drew near 
they could see that the dooryard enclosed in a 
whitewashed fence was gay with spring flow- 
ers, and that an air of shining cleanliness and 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


177 


amazing neatness hung about the whole place. 
Opposite the cottage there was a strip of wood- 
land through which a vista had been cut to the 
lake beyond. 

“ Oh, Polly,” cried Margery, leaning over 
the whitewashed gate and forgetting that she 
could be heard by anyone in the house. “ Did 
you ever see anything so ducky? Isn’t it all 
like a fascinating toy house? Look — even a 
white kitten to match it! Wouldn’t Deborah 
be crazy about it? She says that big old farm- 
house of the Morris’s makes her long for a little 
cottage.” 

‘‘ Admirin’ my kitten, eh? ” said a voice close 
by. “ Won’t you come in and see it? ” and a 
tall old man, whose long, clean-shaven face 
seemed to radiate good-nature, straightened up 
from the rose-bush he had been pruning. 

“Are — are you Mr. Beacon, the head of the 
school board? ” asked Polly, her hand on the 
gate. 

“ That’s who I am,” smiled the man. “Any- 
thing I can do for you? ” 

“ We’ve come to see you about the school,” 
put in Margery. 

“ Well, well. Hadn’t you better come in 


178 MARGERY MORRIS 

and sit on the porch then ? Wait until I get 
my coat. ” 

He took his coat off the fence where he had 
hung it, and led the way to the little front 
porch. The girls sat down on an old-fashioned 
settee elaborately painted on the back with 
great bunches of flowers, and Mr. Beacon set- 
tled himself comfortably on the steps. 

“ Now then,'’ he asked, folding his hands on 
his knees, “ what about the school? ” 

The girls hesitated. It was hard to know 
quite where to begin. 

“ Well,” encouraged Mr. Beacon, what 
can I do for you? ” 

“ Lots of things,” answered Margery 
frankly. 

‘‘ Lots of things? Well, now perhaps I’d 
enjoy doing that, if I knew what they were.” 

“ Well, it’s this way,” began Margery. 

“ You see,” put in Polly. 

“ The school is so shabby and dreary,” Mar- 
gery went on. 

“And Ada talks about it so.” 

“And we think if the school looked more ct- 
tractive it might be more of a credit to An'.er- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 179 


“And we are very anxious to teach Ada and 
the others what America really stands for.” 

Mr. Beacon raised his hands. “ Hold on 
there, young ladies,” he protested. “ I’m 
afraid that I am not getting the drift of this. 
And I want to understand you, you know. 
Who is Ada? And what difference does she 
make to America? ” 

“ Why, you see,” Margery explained, “ she 
speaks about it so bitterly.” 

“ I think I see. Well, now, suppose you 
explain all about it to me first, and then the 
other young lady can tell me about it too. I’m 
not as young as I used to be and it takes a 
powerful lot of explaining to make me see 
things, sometimes.” 

Margery laughed. “ I’m afraid our expla- 
nations were rather wild,” she said. “ I’ll try 
to do better.” 

As clearly and definitely as she could she 
told about Ada and her comments on the school 
and America, and how she and Polly were anx- 
ious to teach her something of the meaning and 
beauty of their beloved country. 

“And we’d just like to do what we can to 
make the school prettier,” she finished eagerly. 


180 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ That’s what we have come for to-day — to get 
permission to do it.” 

Mr. Beacon nodded thoughtfully. “ Hm, 
hm,” he said, “ yes, yes. How would you do 
it?” 

“ We’d get things from the woods,” Polly 
explained, and went on to speak of the plans 
she and Margery had made. 

“ Well,” answered Mr. Beacon, rubbing his 
square chin, “ I can’t for the life of me see any 
objection to your doing that. There is just 
one stipulation I make, though. That is that 
you get some of these here foreigners to help 
you with the transplanting and the fixin’ up. 
People always value a thing a lot more if they 
have worked for it. And if you want them to 
take an interest in things, you have to give 
them something to do. That’s the first 
law.” 

It was so charming on the little porch with 
its view of the lake that the girls lingered on, 
although Mr. Beacon cast anxious eyes toward 
the bushes he was pruning. At last Margery 
caught his wandering glance and jumped up. 

“ Thank you very much, Mr. Beacon,” she 
said. “ I’m afraid that we have taken a lot of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 181 


your time. When we get our transplanting 
done you must come to see the school.” 

Mr. Beacon went with them to the gate. 
“ Well,” he said, “ education is a wonderful 
thing. I never had any. Had to work on the 
farm from the time I was a little chap of eight. 
Just got a smattering of schoolin’ now 
and then. One day when I was about twenty, 
I was complainin’ to a girl I knew — she was 
the sweetest, cutest little thing you ever saw, 
too; not many girls like her these days. ‘ Jo- 
nas,’ she said, ‘ any fool can ask questions, but 
it takes a wise man to answer them. You be a 
fool and ask questions.’ 

“ So that’s the way I got what education I 
have. Learned it by being a fool and asking 
questions. Sometimes I asked those questions 
of the encyclopaedia or the dictionary. Some- 
times I asked them of the people who knew 
and could tell me. But always I asked the 
questions.” 

“ I wonder,” Margery said to Polly when 
they were safely out of ear-shot, “ what be- 
came of that girl who told him to ask the ques- 
tions.” 

“ I wonder,” said Polly. 


CHAPTER XIII 


TRANSPLANTING 

“Just flowers won’t do no good,” Ada 
sniffed contemptuously when she was told of 
the plan. “I think it’s silly. Just to stick 
some green things up against a building and 
then call that loving your country.” 

“ Don’t you want the things you love to be 
beautiful? And if you love your country don’t 
you want to make every bit of it that you 
can beautiful? ” asked Margery in return. 
“ Mother told me a story one day about an 
American who was riding in a cab in some for- 
eign city. He tore up a letter and threw the 
little pieces of paper out of the cab window. 
The driver of the cab saw him do it, and was 
simply furious. He said to the man, ‘ What 
do you mean by littering up our beautiful city 
like that? Would you do that in your own 
country? * Or haven’t you any pride in your 
country? ’ And then he got down off the car- 
riage and carefully picked up every one of 
182 


IN THE PINE WOODS 183 


those little pieces of paper. Nov^ , I think that 
cabman was patriotic.” 

“ Humph,” said Ada. 

“ Well, come along with us, anyway, when 
we go for the plants,” suggested Polly. “All 
the rest are going. Mrs. Morris has engaged 
a man and a wagon to bring the bushes to the 
school in, and we’ll go deeper into the woods 
than we ever dare to when we are alone. And 
anyway, we’re going to take sandwiches along 
and have a picnic and fun, so you had better 
come.” 

“ Humph,” said Ada again. 

Nevertheless, when the others gathered at 
the school on Saturday morning, Ada was 
there, looking unusually cheerful. Rosa and 
the others were frankly happy, and chattered 
away gayly among themselves. Ada held 
herself aloof, and scarcely spoke to anyone 
until Mrs. Morris beckoned to her. 

“ We are going to start, now,” Mrs. Morris 
said ; “ suppose you and I lead the way.” 

She had heard Margery and Polly speak of 
Ada and she was anxious to see for herself 
what manner of girl she was. 

“ I’m afraid it is a little late to be trans- 


184 


MARGERY MORRIS 


planting things,” she began. “ But still I have 
seen some marvellous things done in that way. 
Anyway, I believe in trying things, don’t you? 
Especially when it isn’t going to do a bit of 
harm if you fail.” 

“ I think failure is the worst thing in the 
world,” answered Ada solemnly. 

“And yet failure can be very wholesome and 
bracing, if we have the courage and fortitude 
to rise from it and try again.” 

“ I don’t agree with you,” Ada said flatly. 

“ No? ” said Mrs. Morris, checking a desire 
to laugh. 

“No. People talk a lot about courage and 
making the best of things. Things ought to 
be so perfect that you never have to make the 
best of them.” 

“We can only take the world as we find it,” 
observed Mrs. Morris mildly. 

“ Oh, yes, that’s easy for you rich,” and Ada 
launched out into one of her bitter speeches. 

Mrs. Morris was silent. She was studying 
this strange girl with her queer mixture of 
ignorance and distorted knowledge culled from 
revolutionary books, and thinking what a force 
for good or evil she might develop into. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 185 


“And I suppose there are thousands more 
like her/’ she reflected. “ We Americans must 
try to make friends with them, perhaps, and 
teach them something to take the place of their 
bitter thoughts.” 

At last Ada stopped talking, tired from the 
force of her own eloquence, for she spoke very 
intensely. 

“ I suppose you are looking at those two 
girls over there,” said Mrs. Morris frankly, 
waving her hand toward Margery and Polly 
who were happily absorbed in digging up a 
wild azalea, “ and making' contrasts. And yet 
each of those girls has her trouble. Polly’s is 
a real and dreadful grief. Just a few months 
ago her dear father died, and her home was 
broken up. You have your father and mother 
and your home. And Margery has been very 
ill, and will be frail for a long time. How she 
envies you your strength, and your power to 
study. And her father has gone across to 
France to help the wounded there and we can- 
not help but feel very anxious. We would not 
have him do otherwise, of course, but still I 
never have a moment that is free from anxiety. 
I try to keep my mind off it, and to think of 


186 MARGERY MORRIS 

the girls’ idea about the oyster. Did they tell 
you? ” 

“ No,” said Ada, curtly. 

Mrs. Morris laughed and told of the oyster- 
shell Dick had sent to Margery to keep up her 
courage. “ Do you know,” she finished, “ some 
of the great people of the world have been 
pearl makers. Because of some unhappiness 
in their lives they have reached out and done 
some wonderful thing, written great books, or 
music, or done something for humanity. I 
have a long string of pearl beads. — I believe 
that I will give a bead to every girl who can 
bring me the name of someone who has done 
some big thing in spite of the obstacles of ill- 
health, or lack of means, or some crushing sor- 
row. To the girl who can get the longest 
string of beads. I’ll give any books she may 
want.” 

Ada smiled and her plain face was trans- 
figured. “ I would like a book,” she said. 

“ Mother,” called Margery, “ just come and 
see what wonderful laurel bushes we have 
found. They are not very big, but they will 
transplant better, Caesari says, than bigger 
ones,” and she included the eldest of the Bol- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


187 


dini family, who spade in hand was standing 
beside her. 

Cassari gTinned, and, delighted to be noticed, 
began with a tremendous display of energy and 
enthusiasm to spade up another laurel bush. 

“ Who is that boy, Margery? ” asked her 
mother, indicating another lad who stood by 
sombrely watching Csesari. 

“ Why, I really don’t know. His name is 
Angelo Bucci and his father has the little cob- 
bler’s shop over beyond the road to George- 
ville. That’s all I know about him. Ask 
Polly." 

“ Oh, there are a whole lot of them, that’s all 
I know,” answered Polly. 

“ He has such a queer, worried look, I won- 
dered about him.” 

“ Oh, Polly,” laughed Margery, aren’t 
they the ones you told me were under Ada’s 
spell? That she had some sort of an evil in- 
fluence over them? ” 

Polly laughed, too. “ That does sound like 
a dime novel, doesn’t it? Still I have thought 
sometimes that there might be something 
queer.” 

“ Ugh,” shivered Margery in assumed dread. 


188 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ let’s forget spells and such witchcraft in this 
heavenly spot. Don’t you wish. Mother, that 
we could camp out here, and not have to go 
back to the Inn? ” 

They were in a little clearing beside a nar- 
row winding stream, where the spring flowers 
were blooming. In a damp sheltered comer 
Margery suddenly spied something pink. 

“ Look,” she cried, running back to the 
others with a lovely lavender-pink flower in 
her hand. “ What is this? ” 

“ That’s a whippoorwill’s shoe, or moccasin 
flower,” Polly explained. “ Show it to Ada, 
just for fun, and see what she says.” 

Ada was contemptuous of the flower, al- 
though Margery suspected that her contempt 
might be partly assumed for effect. But she 
detained Margery and Polly. “ That lady 
says that she’ll give us a prize for finding out 
the most people who have done big things in 
spite of trouble or sorrow. That’s all right 
for you rich, but where will I get the books? ” 
Polly hesitated. To give her precious books 
to Ada would be a sacrifice; Ada was untidy 
and careless, and the books would never be the 
same after she had handled them. Still, she 


IN THE PINE WOODS 189 

had made up her mind to try to show Ada 
another side of America and Americans than 
she professed to know. 

'‘You can have my books,” she said. “ I’ll 
be glad to lend them to you.” 

Ada looked at her in surprise, but made no 
comment. 

“Come, everybody,” called Mrs. Morris; 
“ we must get to work if we are going to fill the 
cart before the twilight sets in.” 

“All right,” the girls declared, “we really 
will get to work.” 

Margery took charge of one group, and 
Polly another, while Mrs. Morris directed the 
little children to dig up the low-growing wild 
flowers with which a flower-bed was to be 
planted beside the schoolhouse. Most of the 
older boys knew something about gardening 
and they were able to select the plants and dig 
them up with good judgment. They took 
laurel and holly and the pink-blossomed wild 
azalea and the clambering greenbrier, although 
Polly protested at that and declared it would be 
“All over everything,” before they had been 
able to make any more improvements on the 
schoolhouse. 


190 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Some time some nice public-spirited person 
will think of giving us some money to paint the 
school and fix things up, but when he comes 
to see the place and look it over, he won’t find 
any school, all he will see will be a huge green- 
brier vine with a smokestack sticking out of the 
center of it.” 

Margery was interested in her mother’s 
scheme of a flower garden and suggested the 
lupin, brilliantly blue, and the white-blossomed 
turkey -beard to plant in the bare corners where 
nothing else was likely to grow with any de- 
gree of success. 

“ Do you suppose that they are enjoying 
it?” she asked her mother. “And that they 
will take any interest in the things after we get 
them planted? Or do you think that they will 
just break the plants and not care for them a 
bit? ” 

“ Well, they seem to be enjoying it now, 
judging from the way they are laughing and 
chattering — just look at that girl now.” And 
she nodded toward Rosa Bonini who seemed 
in fits of laughter over some joke she was shar- 
ing with another girl of about her own age. 
“And I think that they will enjoy the sand- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 191 


wiches and cake I have, when they get back to 
the school.” 

“ Don’t you think, Mrs. Morris,” asked 
Polly, “ that we ought to be getting back to 
plant these things pretty soon? ” 

“ Yes, Polly, I do — we’ll just go on to that 
open space over there and get some of those 
ferns and then we will go back. Margery, you 
look tired, child ; you would better climb up on 
the cart and ride the rest of the way.” 

Margery was tired enough to enjoy the ride 
back to the school perched up beside the old 
Irishman who drove the cart. From her place 
she could look down on the others and see all 
that was going on. 

“Just think,” she observed to the driver, “ of 
there being so man}^^ nationalities in one tiny 
little school. There are Russians and Italians, 
and the little son of the English maid at the 
Inn, and the German cook’s daughter, and — 
and those little ones there are just plain 
Americans.” 

“ Loike meself as ye can tell by me accint.” 

Margery laughed and jumped do^vn from 
the cart as it stopped before the schoolhouse. 

Although the old Irishman gave willing and 


192 


MARGERY MORRIS 


efficient help in planting the vines and bushes, 
and the boys and girls labored cheerfully, it 
was longer and harder work than Margery or 
Polly had dreamed of its being. 

“ Who would have thought,’' remarked Mar- 
gery to Miss Martin, who had just come to 
the schoolhouse to see what had been brought 
from the woods, “ that it 'would be such hard 
work just to dig holes and stick things in them. 
Thank goodness, they are through now and 
that we’ve got plenty of lemonade and sand- 
wiches and candy, or those boys and girls 
would never forgive us for the work we have 
made them do. And the school does look bet- 
ter already, doesn’t it? ” 

“ Yes, it does,” admitted Miss Martin. “ I 
didn’t think it would, either.” 

On each side of the door was a clump of 
holly and laurel bushes, and laurel and holly 
and low-growing azaleas were massed about 
the sides wherever their future growth would 
not interfere with the outlook from the win- 
dows. 

“ When the flowers and ferns grow it’s going 
to be simply stunning. Now for the sand- 
wiches.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 193 


“ What is that child crying for? ” asked 
Mrs. Morris, coming up to them with a box of 
candy in her hands. “I’ve tried to comfort 
her, but it doesn’t do the slightest good. I just 
seem to frighten her.” 

“ What child? ” asked Margery. 

Mrs. Morris pointed across the road to a log 
under an old juniper tree there. On the log 
there was a forlorn little heap of clothes that 
moved occasionally. 

“ I suppose that some of the other children 
have hit her, or hurt her, or taken her candy 
away,” said Polly. “ Children can be so 
awfully cruel to each other. I’ll go and see 
what’s the matter.” 

She crossed the road and the others fol- 
lowed, keeping a respectful distance in order 
not to frighten the child. 

“ I think it’s one of the Bucci family,” Miss 
Martin said in a low voice. 

Polly bent over the child. “What’s the 
matter, little girl? ” she asked kindly. 

The girl raised half -drowned brown eyes. 
“ It’s da poppa,” she sobbed. 

“ Has he whipped you? ” Polly asked. She 
had already found out that her schoolmates 


194 MARGERY MORRIS 

were often very severely whipped by their 
fathers. 

“ No. No. He’s gone.” 

Polly sat down on the log beside the child. 
‘‘ Tell me about it,” she said gently. ‘‘ When 
did he go? ” 

“ He went last month,” said a voice at her 
elbow, and she turned to find Angelo Bucci, 
the boy whose sullen worried expression had 
attracted Mrs. Morris’s attention earlier in the 
afternoon. 

The little girl bowed her head on her 
knees again and there was a fresh burst of 
tears. 

“Can’t you make her stop?” Polly im- 
plored. 

Angelo spoke rapidly in Italian to his little 
sister and the child bravely tried to choke down 
her tears. 

“Where has your father gone?” asked 
Polly. 

The boy scowled and said nothing. 

The little girl raised her head again. “ He’s 
gone — we don’t know where. We ain’t got 
no money.” 

“ Why did he go? ” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 195 


Angelo scowled again. “ He ain’t got no 
money to pay the rent.” 

Bit by bit Polly extracted enough of their 
story to draw her own conclusions. The cob- 
bler had fallen behind with his rent, and at the 
threat of expulsion by a grasping landlord, 
had disappeared, in the trust that neighbors, 
kind as the poor usually are to each other, 
would take care of his family. 

“ But people won’t do nothing for us no 
more,” the boy had said, “ and we can’t get 
nothing from the store any more because we 
ain’t got no money. I can’t work da show- 
shop. I can’t fix da shoes. My mother, she’s 
sick. I can’t make no money working because 
I have to go to school. Dat’s da law.” 

“ That is bad,” Polly said sympathetically. 
She patted the little girl on the shoulder. 
“ There, there, kiddie, don’t cry any longer. 
I’ll speak to Mrs. Morris and she’ll do some- 
thing for you. I know she will. And your 
father will come back. Perhaps he hasn’t gone 
very far away.” 

Margery and her mother crossed the road 
and joined them. “ What’s the matter? ” 
Mrs. Morris said softly to Polly. 


196 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ I’ll explain later,” Polly whispered back. 
“Are there plenty of sandwiches left? ” 

“ Yes, indeed,” Mrs. Morris answered with 
her quick tact. “ But I’m afraid you two 
won’t get your share unless you hurry,” she 
added to the boy and girl. 

The Bucci brother and sister moved off 
quickly in the direction of the lunch-basket, 
and Polly explained in a few words what little 
she had been able to find out. 

“ I have heard of men leaving their families 
before when the wolf was at the door,” Mrs. 
Morris said thoughtfully. “ People will al- 
most always take care of a woman and her 
children. We must investigate this case. 
They may really be in need.” 

Margery looked at Polly with widening 
eyes. “ Polly,” she said, “ do you suppose 
that man ran away because he hadn’t any 
money to pay the rent, or because Ada has 
scared him into doing it? ” 


CHAPTER XIV 

PEARLS 

“ We must go to see the Bucci family to- 
morrow,” Mrs. Morris had declared the even- 
ing after they had been plant-hunting. “ They 
may be in actual want.” 

“ But, Mother, how can we do it? We can’t 
just walk in and say, ‘ Here we are. We know 
your husband has skedaddled, Mrs. Bucci, so 
we’ve come to play Santa Claus.’ ” 

Mrs. Morris held up a pair of patent leather 
pumps she had just taken from the cupboard. 
“ There are more tactful ways of doing it,” she 
smiled. “ For instance — don’t you think that 
these heels might be a little bit straighter? At 
anjT^ rate, we will take them to the cobbler’s, and 
while we are there we may hear something 
about her needs from the wife of the absent 
cobbler. And I really don’t think that it is 
right to let such a case go by unnoticed. For 
197 


198 MAEGEBY MORRIS 

one never knows what people may be suffer- 
ing.’^ 

“ The children certainly did look unhappy. 
That poor little girl’s heart seemed broken,” 
Margery observed as she turned out the light 
and opened her window. “ Goodness, just 
hear that wind. Doesn’t it sound mournful? ” 

In the middle of the night she was awakened 
by the wind howling around the corner of the 
house and rattling at the windows as though 
it were going to break them. 

“ Why, it’s pouring,” she thought as she 
cuddled down deeper under the warm covers. 
“And hear that wind. Oh, dear! ” as a fierce 
gust of wind seemed to fill the room and there 
was a crash. A vase of wild flowers on a table 
had been blown over. 

When she awoke the next morning the room 
felt damp and cold. As she put down the 
window she saw that the lake was gray and 
storm-tossed and that the encircling tall dark 
pines were half shut out by the mist and rain. 

“ I’m afraid that we won’t be able to go to 
the Bucci family to-day,” she called to her 
mother. “ Isn’t it a dreary day? What ever 
will we do with ourselves? ” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 199 


“ One girl of average intelligence not to be 
able to provide amusement for herself with- 
out outside assistance! And only for one 
day! For shame, Margery.” 

Margery chuckled. “ To be bored is al- 
most the worst sin in your calendar, isn’t it, 
Mother? ” 

“ To have time hang heavily on one’s hands 
is. It seems to me perfectly dreadful not to 
have any resources.” 

“ These people don’t look as though they 
had many resources, do they? ” Margery re- 
marked at breakfast, as she poured the cream 
on her oatmeal. 

Mrs. Morris glanced about the dining-room. 
The rain was coming down now in sheets and 
the room was so dark that the electric lights 
had to be turned on. 

“ It’s too bad when people have only a few 
days’ outing that they should have such 
weather,” she said sympathetically. “ With 
us it is different. We can afford to be cheer- 
ful. Now what are you going to do? Write 
letters? ” 

“ I suppose so. I have a lot to write.” 

“And might I suggest it? — there is some of 


200 MARGERY MORRIS 

Margery’s mending that Margery might 
do.” 

The rain continued to beat down and the 
wind swept through the trees, but inside the 
two big corner rooms that Margery and her 
mother occupied it was warm and cosy. 

“ By the way, Mother, Ada said that you 
were going to offer a prize to the girl who 
could find the most people who have done big 
things in spite of sorrow or illness or poverty.” 

“ The most people who have been masters of 
their fate? Yes. I thought it might offset 
some of Ada’s bitterness if she were to discover 
how happily she is placed in comparison to 
some of the people who fought through diffi- 
culties and became great and famous. The 
trouble is that she thinks everybody else lies 
on a bed of ease. 

“ It wouldn’t be a bad idea for you and 
Polly to try for that prize either. Seeing 
what other people have done in the world is 
very inspirational. But my idea of the prize 
grew out of your talk about the oysters and the 
pearls.” 

“ I see. You want the people who, as 
oysters, have coated their troubles with mother 


IN THE PINE WOODS 201 


of pearl. I’d have to read up a lot. I think 
when I write to Grandpapa I’ll ask him to send 
me some books about famous people.” 

Later in the day the storm slackened. The 
wind died down and the rain subsided into a 
gentle patter. Margery persuaded her mother 
into allowing her to go to the post-ofHce to mail 
her letters, and Mrs. Morris, concluding that 
perhaps the walk would do her good, suggested 
that she stop in to see Polly for a few minutes. 
Guarded from the dampness by raincoat, over- 
shoes and umbrella, Margery set out. 

Everywhere she saw signs of the havoc 
wrought by last night’s storm. Great branches 
of the trees were broken off and lay on the 
ground, the rowboats by the Inn wharf were 
half swamped, and here and there a shutter on 
one of the cottages hung forlornly by one 
hinge. But the air was fresh and rain-washed 
and Margery enjoyed trudging along the 
sandy road under the dripping pines. 

“ How good it smells,” she thought. 
“ There’s nothing like getting out-of-doors 
after a storm.'* 

As she knocked at the door of Pine Cottage 
she could hear unusual sounds of activity. 


202 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“Miss Stanley must be away,” she thought 
with amusement, “ She never would allow 
that rumpus.” 

The maid opened the door, and as Margery 
stepped into the hall and put her dripping 
umbrella into the stand, she heard Miss Stan- 
ley, her voice almost gay, speaking in the little 
room at the back of the house, and Polly an- 
swering her. 

“ Polly,” she called softly, so as not to irri- 
tate Miss Stanley. “ Who-oo.” 

“ Oh, hello, Margery,” Polly called delight- 
edly. “ Come back here.” 

Margery hurried down the hall and found 
Polly putting up some curtains in front of a 
little bookcase improvised from a packing box. 
Miss Stanley, on her knees before a pile of 
books, threw her a nod and smile over her 
shoulder. 

“ Why, she’s pretty,” Margery thought with 
surprise. 

“ Look, Margery,” Polly exclaimed. “ See 
what Miss Stanley has helped me to make. 
She has lent some books, too. We are going 
to have a little lending library. Ada spoke to 
me about books to-day. I think that they are 


IN THE PINE WOODS 203 


the one way to Ada’s heart. She is starved 
for something to read here. And she was 
thrilled over your mother’s idea of finding out 
the people that are conquerors of their fate, 
captains of their souls, and so forth. I told 
Miss Stanley about it all, and she has lent all 
these books.” 

“ Oh, goody,” Margery cried. “ I wrote to 
Grandpapa and asked him to send me some 
books, too. If he does I’ll put them in the 
collection. If books will tame Ada, let’s give 
her lots to read.” 

Miss Stanley got up from her knees. “ I 
think that it is such a good plan that you have 
of helping these people and I’m sure books 
will help you.” 

She left the room to get some more books, 
and Margery whispered to Polly: 

“ What has struck her? ” 

“ I don’t know,” Polly whispered back. 
“ She heard me telling Mother that Ada had 
asked for books, and she seemed interested, so 
I told her all about everything. Really, she’s 
been awfully nice. Perhaps she’s feeling 
better and less nervous.” 

“ Perhaps the idea of the oyster and the 


204 


MARGERY MORRIS 


pearl rather cheered her up the way it did us,” 
said Margery sagely. “ She may just be ill 
and discouraged, and not really disagreeable, 
after all.” 

“ Perhaps. And perhaps she ” Polly 

stopped abruptly, for Miss Stanley had come 
back with some more books in her hands and 
looking even more cheerful. 

“ I had a letter from one of the Renwyck’s 
Town boys the other day,” Margery addressed 
Miss Stanley, “ and he said somebody carved 
the motto once on the head of a pickaxe, 

‘ Either I'll find a way or make it.’ I think 
that’s a pretty good motto, don’t you? Either 
we’ll find a way to tame Ada or we’ll make 
one. 

Miss Stanley sighed sadly. “ That’s a 
motto that belongs to youth’s cheerfulness. 
When you get older, you don’t feel so sure. 
However, I try to remember the legend my 
mother used to tell me about the birds. When 
the birds were first created they had no wings. 
Then their wings came and they found them 
very burdensome. They chirpingly begged 
and begged to be relieved of their wings be- 
cause they were too heavy. But the burden 


IN THE PINE WOODS 205 

was not taken away and they were told that 
they must learn to lift it. Gradually they did 
learn to lift the burden of their wings, and so 
they gained their power to fly. But when one 
is ill and tired it is hard to remember that 
story. There’s someone at the door.” 

“Ada, probably,” Polly explained. “ She 
said she would be here about this time for the 
books.” 

It was Ada, wind-blown and tired, her shoes 
sopping wet, and her over-stylish hat a wreck, 
for she had neither overshoes nor umbrella, but 
she was eager for the books, and with little 
more than a nod to the others she sat down in 
front of the bookcase. 

Margery sat down on the floor before the 
pile Miss Stanley had lent. “ What a lot of 
good books you have. Miss Stanley,” she said 
admiringly. 

“ Yes, my books have been a great deal to 
me. I had nowhere else to put them, as I 
don’t like to put books in storage, so I brought 
them here. These I had to lend to my classes 
when I was teaching.” 

Most of the books were literary criticisms 
and biographies, and Margery, looking 


206 


MARGERY MORRIS 


through them with the idea of the pearl and 
the oyster, found much to interest her. 

“ Miss Stanley,” she asked, “ did you know 
about Lucy Larcom? ” 

“ Who’s Lucy Larcom? ” interrupted Ada, 
rudely. 

“ She was a New England poetess who 
wrote beautiful poems on nature,” Miss Stan- 
ley explained. “ She was a factory girl in the 
days before there were laws against too long 
hours in factories. Every day she worked 
from five in the morning until seven in the 
evening, and scarcely ever had a day off except 
Sunday, and yet her poems are lovely and with 
the very spirit of out-of-doors in them.” 

‘‘ I like old Beethoven plugging away at his 
music,” observed Polly, “ and all the time as 
deaf as an adder and never able to hear any 
of it. That was certainly working in spite of 
obstacles, wasn’t it? ” 

“ I like Stevenson,” said Margery. ‘‘ He 
was so ill and so cheerful always. And just 
think what he did in spite of bad health.” 

“ Yes,” answered Miss Stanley thought- 
fully; “yes, we mustn’t forget Stevenson. I 
think perhaps one of the bravest people of all 


IN THE PINE WOODS 207 

was Prescott. When he was a handsome, 
merry boy at college another boy accidentally 
struck him in the eye with a hard piece of 
bread. They were skylarking, I suppose. It 
immediately destroyed the sight of his left eye, 
and the other eye became very badly affected, 
so that he was almost entirely blind. Yet he 
made up his mind to devote himself to his- 
torical writings, and in spite of his infirmity, 
managed with the help of a secretary to study 
all the histories and ancient and modern lan- 
guages that he needed in his work.” 

“ What did he write? ” asked Ada. 

“ Oh, Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Con- 
quest of Mexico, and the Conquest of Peru. 
They are books you ought to read.” 

“ Dear me,” said Polly, “ I don’t see how 
you and I are ever going to be famous, Mar- 
gery, unless we drop off an arm or two, the 
way the pine-tree swift does its tail. To be 
armless, or legless, or deaf, or blind, seems to 
be the first qualification for success.” 

Ada looked up and chuckled. The first 
time that either Margery or Polly had ever 
heard her laugh without sarcasm or bitterness. 
“ There was a famous man, I forget his name,” 


208 


MARGERY MORRIS 


she said, “ and his grandfather sat on him when 
he was a baby. He was so nearly smothered 
that he was feeble for most of his life. You 
might get somebody to sit on you.” 

The girls laughed rather hilariously; not so 
much because they thought Ada’s speech funny 
as because they desired to encourage her in any 
attempt in amiability that she might make. 

Miss Stanley went off to take her nap and 
the girls settled down on the floor, cross- 
legged like three solemn little Buddhas, to 
read. Now and then Margery and Polly 
glanced at each other and smiled to see Ada 
bending over her book, her bitter little face 
strangely softened and absorbed. 

“ Why, how dark it is,” said Polly at last. 
“ I must light the lamp.” 

“ I must go in just a moment,” Margery 
murmured; “but this is so interesting.” 

Ada looked at her and the bitter expression 
stole over her face again. Never perhaps had 
Margery looked prettier or more high-bred 
than she did at that moment as she crouched 
on the floor, her straight little serge frock fall- 
ing in soft folds about her and the light of the 
lamp Polly had just lit streaming down on her 


IN THE PINE WOODS 209 


golden curls and flushed, absorbed face. Her 
very appearance stood for everything that Ada 
hated and rebelled against, and the foreign 
girl’s dark eyes seemed to blaze as she gazed 
at her. Polly caught the look and was 
startled. 

Margery was unconscious. With a laugh 
she handed the book over to Ada and got up. 
“ Just read that about Lincoln,” she said. 
“ It makes one feel so mean and small. Read 
it aloud.” 

Obediently Ada read; “ ‘ On one occasion 
someone told Mr. Lincoln that Stanton had 
called him a fool. “ Did Stanton say that? ” 
Mr. Lincoln asked. “ Yes, Mr. Lincoln, he 
did.” “ Then I must be one, for Stanton is 
nearly always right, you know.” ’ ” 

“ Wasn’t that wonderful and forgiving? ” 
said Margery. “ Most people would have 
been so hopping mad that they would have 
ripped out some mean thing about Stanton. 
I know I should.” She picked up her rain- 
coat. “ It is dark,” she exclaimed. “ I must 
hurry or Mother will worry.” 

Ada looked up at her again, caught by some- 
thing in Margery’s unconscious courtesy and 


210 MARGERY MORRIS 

sincerity, and the bitter look faded out of her 
eyes. 

“ It’s too late for you to be out alone,” she 
said protectingly. “ I’ll go with you and take 
care of you.” 


CHAPTER XV 


THE BUCCI EAMH^Y 

“ I WONDER how the things we planted 
around the schoolhouse survived the storm — 
poor things,” said Margery to her mother the 
next morning. “ It’s hard to realize that yes- 
terday was so dreadfully stormy.” 

She and her mother were sitting together on 
the Inn veranda, enjoying the warm sunshine 
and the fresh sweet air. The day was bril- 
liantly clear, every tiny twig and blade of 
grass was rain-washed and sparkling, and the 
sky was a cloudless blue. Only the fallen 
branches and the occasional puddles in the 
sandy road remained to speak of the storm. 

“ What’s that dinner bell ringing for? ” 
asked Margery suddenly. “ Hear it? ” 

There was a monotonous ding-dong of a 
hand-bell from far down the road. They lis- 
tened. Nearer and nearer grew the sound. 

“ Oh,” said Mrs. Morris, ‘‘ it’s a travelling 
scissors grinder. Wait and see.” 

211 


212 


MARGERY. MORRIS 


A little old man with a small grindstone 
strapped to his back came in sight. He car- 
ried a bell in his hand which he rang with the 
same melancholy monotony that he cried, 
“Any scissors to grind? Any knives to 
grind? ” 

“ Spring is really here,” remarked Mrs. 
Morris. “ The travelling scissors grinder 
seems just as much part of spring as the blue- 
bird.” 

“ Yes,” sighed Margery dolefully, “ spring’s 
here. And I’m here — instead of being at home 
in Renwyck’s Town studying for dear life for 
college. It’s awfully discouraging. And it 
seems so lonely never to see any of the boys and 
girls.” 

“ There’s Polly,” Mrs. Morris reminded 
her. 

“ Yes, of course, there’s Polly, and she’s a 
perfect lamb. But I think that she gets lonely 
and homesick, too.” 

“ It seems very ungrateful when we think 
how safe and well we are here — ^with warm 
rooms and good food and every comfort, and 
compare it with what the people on the other 
side of the ocean are suffering,” and Mrs. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 213 


Morris held up the letter that had come that 
morning from her husband. 

“ Yes/’ said Margery contritely, “ it does 
seem wicked for me to grumble/’ She put out 
her hand for her father’s letter, and opening it 
read it once more, while her mother sat ab- 
sently gazing into space. Suddenly Mrs. 
Morris smiled and nodded her head as though 
a thought had come to her that was pleasing, 
but Margery read on, deeply absorbed in the 
letter. 

“ This afternoon, Margery, I think that we 
had better go to see that Bucci family,” ob- 
served Mrs. Morris as Margery folded up the 
letter and put it back into the envelope. “We 
can stop for Polly after school, as she wants to 
go with us, and then we can see, too, how our 
plants weathered the storm.” 

The storm had done remarkably little dam- 
age, as they found out when they stopped at 
the school that afternoon. Some of the frailer 
wild flowers had been washed away, but the 
bushes all stood staunch and erect. Some of 
the vines were down but one of the boys was 
busily tying up those that had fallen. 

“Who is that boy?” asked Margery as 


214 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Polly joined them and they walked away from 
the schoolhouse. 

“ One of the Bucci boys. The oldest one. 
Do you know, Margery, I haven’t heard a word 
about my stories yet. I think that is a very 
good sign, don’t you? ” 

“ Yes, indeed, ” Margery assured her. “ Oh, 
Polly, I can scarcely wait to see how much 
money they send you ! ” 

“You scrub floors! You scrub floors!” 
shrieked a chorus back of them. “ You scrub 
floors ! ” 

They turned; the Bucci boy was running 
down the road pursued by four or five children 
who ran after him screaming, “You scrub 
floors ! ” 

“Why shouldn’t he scrub floors?” asked 
Mrs. Morris of one of the children as they came 
up. “ Don’t you have your floors scrubbed? ” 

“ Me mother scrubs our floors,” answered 
the child. “ Scrubbin’s woman’s work. Men 
and boys don’t scrub floors. You scrub 
floors ! ” she screamed again at the boy. 

“ Me mother’s sick,” muttered the Bucci 
boy sullenly. “ I gotta do it.” 

He ran on, the other children still after him. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 215 


“ Horrid little things,” remarked Polly in- 
dignantly. “ Children can be so awfully 
cruel.” 

“ What queer standards there are,” re- 
marked Mrs. Morris. “ Just because that 
poor boy in trying to help his mother breaks 
one of the little conventions those children hold, 
they must all taunt him.” 

Polly linked her arm in Margery’s and 
drew her back. “ Margie,” she whispered, 
“ what’s up? ” 

“ What’s up? ” 

“ Yes, something is up? ” 

“ How is something up ? I don’t know what 
you mean.” 

“ Why, when your mother went to the post- 
office this morning she stopped in to see 
Mother. She was leaving just as I came home 
for luncheon. Mother wouldn’t tell me what 
they were talking about, but I know it was 
something important.” 

“ I don’t know a thing about it. I just 
imagine Mother was calling on your mother 
for the pleasure of it. She’s awfully fond of 
her, you know.” 

“ No, there is something up. If it’s any- 


216 


MARGERY MORRIS 


thing wrong I’d rather know it right away and 
get it over. If there is something wrong you’ll 
tell me, won’t you? We have had so much 
trouble that it makes me nervous, and I do feel 
worried about Mother. She doesn’t seem a 
bit strong.” 

Margery pressed her hand sympathetically. 
“ There isn’t a blessed thing wrong that I know 
of,” she assured her. “And Mother came in 
from her walk looking awfully cheerful. She 
wouldn’t have done that, you know, if any- 
thing was wrong. You poor dear, you’ve just 
had so much that it’s made you jumpy. I’ll 
ask Mother later on about it. In the mean- 
time, cheer up and try to forget it.” 

“ What are you two girls whispering 
about?” asked Mrs. Morris with a laugh. 
“ Or is it a secret that I’m not supposed to 
know? Isn’t that the house of the Buccis’ 
there ahead of us? I saw the boy go in there.” 

She waved her hand in the direction of a 
tiny whitewashed cottage that stood under a 
huge buttonwood tree. Next to it was a 
blacksmith’s shop and beyond that several 
small houses were clustered together. 

“ Shoes for man and beast,” said Margery, 


IN THE PINE WOODS 217 


indicating the cobbler’s and the smithy. 
“ Now, Mother, how are you going to pro- 
ceed? Your humble audience is along, you 
know.” 

“ I’m going to leave my humble audience 
outside. Now that I have you fairly well I’m 
not going to run any risk of your getting some 
new germ. Besides, I want to speak freely 
to Mrs. Bucci without two giggling girls 
around.” 

“ Oh, Mother, we won’t giggle. Graven 
images will be simply hilarious compared with 
us. Really.” 

But Mrs. Morris was obdurate and it ended 
in Margery and Polly sitting on the steps of 
the shop while Mrs. Morris went inside. 

From where they sat they could see into the 
blacksmith shop, where a horse was being shod. 
“ Isn’t it interesting? ” remarked Margery as 
the shoe was finally fitted on and the horse led 
out and backed into a light rickety wagon. 
“ Do you know, I never saw a horse shod be- 
fore. Gracious, do you hear that crying in 
there? ” 

“ Yes, someone has been crying in there for 
some time. I suppose it’s Mrs. Bucci.” 


218 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ I’m going in,” Margery announced. ‘‘ I 
don’t like Mother being in there alone without 
me to take care of her.” 

“ I’ll go with you,” Polly declared, and look- 
ing very valiant, the two girls marched into 
the cobbler’s. 

There they were confronted by a weeping 
woman with her head buried in her aj)ron, and 
a couple of wide-eyed children clinging to her 
skirts. Angelo, the eldest Bucci boy, looking 
a little less sullen than usual, leaned against 
the counter, while Mrs. Morris tried to talk to 
him. 

“ Yes, my pop he’s gone,” he kept repeat- 
ing. “ He won’t come back till he gets 
money.” 

“ But don’t you know where he has gone? ” 
Mrs. Morris questioned again. 

“ He’s gone.” 

The weeping woman lowered her apron. 
“ I told you,” she insisted. “ I told you he’s 
gone. It’s da curse. He was wicked and I 
tell him so. Then he could make no money to 
pay da rent — or to buy da food. It’s da curse. 
Den he go away. An’ I cannot mend da shoes. 
An’ we have no money.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 219 


What curse?’’ asked Mrs. Morris gently. 

Angelo turned to her. “ Da curse,” he an- 
swered digging the toe of his boot into a crack 
of the floor. “ When you wicked then you get 
cursed.” 

Mrs. Morris was bewildered. “ I don’t 
think that I understand,” she murmured. 
Then with a smile she held out her hand to the 
black-eyed little girl hiding back of her 
mother’s skirts. Shyly the child came to her, 
and Mrs. Morris slipped a folded bill into the 
little hand. 

“ You must have food for the children now,” 
she said kindly to the woman. “And you must 
let me help you for the present. Then we 
must see what we can do about getting your 
husband back. Come, girls, we must be go- 
ing now.” 

“Well, Mother, what was it?” Margery 
demanded as soon as they were out of ear-shot. 
“ You didn’t let us hear much of it, did you? ” 

Mrs. Morris tucked back a lock of Mar- 
gery’s hair that straggled down over her 
cheek. “ There really isn’t much to tell, 
honey. You heard as much as I did. It’s all 
rather mysterious. When I went in I asked if 


220 


MARGERY MORRIS 


I could have my shoes mended — as a way of 
breaking the ice. The woman burst into tears 
at once, and told me that her husband had gone 
away and left her, and that she had no money. 
Whether she really knows where her husband 
is and is merely pretending so as to arouse 
sympathy, I can’t tell.” 

“ But what about the curse, Mrs. Morris? ” 
Mrs. Bucci’s speech about the curse had ap- 
pealed to Polly’s love of the romantic. 

“ Yes, Mother, what about the curse? ” 

“ I couldn’t understand that at all. There 
was such a mixture of broken English and 
Italian and sobs that I could make very little 
out of it.” 

“ She seemed to think that he had been 
wicked, and she told him so. Perhaps she told 
him so too much,” said Polly shrewdly, “ and he 
ran away for the sake of peace.” 

Mrs. Morris laughed. “ Yes, it may be a 
case of a scolding wife. Anyway, I have 
given her some money, enough to tide them 
over for a few days, and I will watch them — 
also I will ask some of the people here.” 

“ I like the idea of the curse,” declared Mar- 
gery. “ I’m sure it’s a case of witchcraft and 


IN THE PINE WOODS 221 


that Ada has bewitched them. There^s an 
idea for a story for you, Polly,” 

“ Yes,” said Polly. “ Of course it’s a curse, 
and that the goblins have kotched Mr. Bucci 
and dragged him away.” 

“ Perhaps the poor man has been taken ill 
somewheres,” suggested Mrs. Morris. “Any- 
way, we will do what we can for them.” 

A downy black and white woodpecker flitted 
about in a tree near them and the girls lost 
interest in the Bucci family in watching the 
pretty bird. 

“ What’s the legend about the woodpecker 
that Dick told us one time, do you remember, 
Polly?” asked Mrs. Morris. “It was some- 
thing about the bird’s red topknot, I 
know.” 

Polly was thoughtful for a moment. “ Oh, 
yes,” she said, “ I do remember the story. 
Once a beggar stopped at the door of a cot- 
tage and asked for something to eat. The 
owner of the cottage was baking griddle cakes, 
and although she was very, very stingy, she 
didn’t quite like to refuse him. So she did as 
little as she could; she just broke off a tiny 
piece of dough, flattened it out and put it on 


222 


MARGERY MORRIS 


the griddle. And at once the dough began to 
spread and spread until it was over the whole 
griddle. ‘ That’s too big to give away/ said 
the woman, and took a still smaller piece of 
dough. That spread too, until it made a big 
cake. So she took an even smaller piece of 
dough, and that too grew big. At last she got 
down to a pinch of dough no bigger than a 
pinhead, and that at once went all over the 
griddle and all over the top of the stove. 
‘All my cakes are too big to give away,’ she 
said to the beggar and slammed the door, her 
face as red with anger as the scarlet cap on 
her head. Now it happened that the beggar 
was an angel and when he saw how mean and 
stingy she was, he changed her into a wood- 
pecker but forgot to change her cap. The 
woodpecker flew right up the chimney, and got 
his wings all black with soot. So that is why 
the woodpecker has a red cap and black wings, 
and has to find its food by boring into the 
trees.” 

“ It is lucky that it has gone out of fashion 
for angels to go about the countryside chang- 
ing people into birds,” laughed Mrs. Morris. 
“For so much of our giving is so like that 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


223 


woman’s that I’m afraid we would all be hop- 
ping about the trees pecking at the branches 
for our food.” 

“ You wouldn’t, Mother,” said Margery 
loyally. “ But you might find it lonely all by 
yourself.” 

Polly walked back to the Inn with Margery 
and her mother, then she made her way to the 
post-office. Ever since she had sent off her 
stories she had not been able to approach that 
little building without a lump in her throat 
and a catch at her breath. There was alwa3^s 
the thought that lying in the post-box might be 
that wonderful letter which was to come with 
the check which was to be a forerunner of hap- 
pier times. It would mean such a difference 
to the lives of her mother and herself that it 
did not seem possible that any editor could be 
so cruel as not to accept her stories. 

“ It’s so silly,” she said angrily to herself 
this evening as she pushed open the post-office 
door, “ to be so scared. Any mail for me, Mr. 
Burton?” aloud. ‘‘Oh!” 

“ What’s the matter? ” asked the postmaster 
kindlv. ‘‘ Bad news? ” 

“Yes. No! No! Yes.” 


224 


MARGERY MORRIS 


She tore open the envelopes. Perhaps the 
stories had been sent back because they needed 
a little alteration. Perhaps ... , 

But, alas, there were only the rejection 
slips, cold and formal. Her little house of 
dreams in ruins, she closed the post-office door 
after her and turned toward the path in the 
woods that led to Pine Cottage. 

The tears would come. “ Stop it, stop it,” 
she scolded herself. “ Other people have dis- 
appointments too. Jane was disappointed, 
last summer, but she has gone on with her work 
after all.” 

But though her brain pointed out that the 
return of her stories was only to be expected, 
and that such things happened every day, her 
heart persisted in aching, and when she reached 
the log by the little stream, she dropped down 
on it and buried her head in her arms. 

There was a rustling through the dead 
leaves left from last autumn and someone 
plumped down on the log beside her. Startled, 
Polly looked up. 

“ Oh, it’s you, Ada? ” 

“ Yes, it’s me. Say, I’ve found another 
oyster. A dandy one.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 225 


Polly’s hand stole to her cheek and she tried 
unobserved to brush away the tear that was 
meandering down toward her chin. 

“ Who? ” she asked with as much enthu- 
siasm as she could muster. 

“ Henry Fawcett. I saw something about 
him in one of the books I got at your house. 
But it didn’t say awful much. So I asked 
Miss Martin. She didn’t know much, either, 
but she looked him up in a book she has. He 
was blind. When he was a young man he was 
out shooting with his father. A lot of par- 
tridges went up and his father shot at them. 
Most of the shot hit the bird Mr. Fawcett was 
aiming at, but two of the shot went aside and 
hit Henry Fawcett square in the eyes. So he 
was blinded for life.” 

“ What was his pearl? ” asked Polly, not 
feeling any interest, but hoping to keep Ada’s 
attention from her tear-stained cheeks. 

“ He was a political leader. First he was a 
professor at some college, even though he was 
blind, and then he was a member of Parlia- 
ment, and then he became postmaster-general. 
And he made a wonderful one. Say, you’ve 
been crying! ” 


226 MARGERY MORRIS 

Polly moved impatiently. “ Oh, dear,” she 
thought, “ Ada will pry into everything now. 
And she’ll never understand.” 

“ It’s no use letting on you haven’t been 
crying,” announced Ada. “ Anybody with 
half an eye can see that you have.” 

In spite of herself, Polly smiled — a some- 
what weak and watery smile. “ Yes, I — I 
have been c-crying,” she admitted. 

“ What for? ” 

“ I felt blue over something.” 

“ What have you got to feel blue over? 
Rich people like you don’t have real things to 
make them sad.” 

“ Don’t they? ” responded Polly dryly. 

“ That Margery’s been mean and stuck up 
to you, I guess.” 

‘ That Margery ’ is never mean and stuck 
up to anybody! She’s a perfect dandy. The 
trouble is, since you must know it, that I wrote 
a couple of stories and mailed them to a maga- 
zine. I was awfully anxious that they should 
be taken. You see, I need the money. My 
father died very suddenly this last winter and 
we have scarcely anything to live on. Mother 
has to work very hard running Pine Cottage, 


IN THE PINE WOODS 227 


and she isn’t strong. I do so want to make 
some money and help out.” 

“ Why don’t the Morrises give you money? ” 

Polly flushed. “ Why, don’t you see? ” she 
explained, “ we wouldn’t want to accept it. 
Margery’s grandfather did offer to educate 
me, but I thought I ought to come here with 
Mother.” 

Ada made no comment. “ Let’s see your 
stories,” she said, holding out her hand for the 
envelopes. ‘‘ I’d like to read them.” 

Polly gave them to her, and took up again 
her depressing thoughts while Ada strained her 
eyes in the gathering dusk over the closely 
written pages. 

A song-sparrow chirped in the bushes in 
front of them as it flitted from twig to twig, 
and Polly watched it idly. “ ‘ How can ye 
chant, ye little birds, and I sae weary, fu’ of 
care?’” she quoted to herself sadly and felt 
cheered by her own melancholy. 

Ada read the stories through without saying 
anything and folded them back in their en- 
velopes. 

‘‘ They’re not very good,” she remarked as 
she put them down on the log beside her. 


228 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Polly managed to achieve a smile. “ No,” 
she said, “ that's evident.” 

“ You don't know enough about the way 
people feel to put it down on paper. You 
make this girl starving in a big city,” and Ada 
tapped one of the envelopes with her fore- 
finger. “ What do you know about how peo- 
ple feel when they are alone and starving? 
You don't know anything about it. Why, I 
could tell you things ! Things that have hap- 
pened to people I know. Why, my father 
once — but what’s the use of telling you about 
it? You wouldn’t understand even.” 

Polly was silent. 

“ Yes, you wouldn’t understand. But why 
don’t you write things about the flowers and 
birds and squirrels and things that you’re al- 
ways making such a fuss over? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Polly vaguely. 

“ Why don’t you? ” prodded Ada. 

“ I don’t know. I don’t believe that any- 
body would want to read them.” 

“ I wouldn’t,” Ada stated frankly. “ I 
don’t care anything about such things. But 
some people do, I suppose. I wouldn’t give 
up an3rway and just sit around and cry about 


IN THE PINE WOODS 229 


it. It may be the blessing in disguise that all 
the goody-goods are always talking about. 
You’ll never make a success writing about peo- 
ple, but you might make a hit writing about 
birds.” 

She jumped to her feet, and without bother- 
ing to say good-bye disappeared down the 
wooded path, dim with shadow now in the twi- 
light. 

Polly sat still, scarlet with indignation. 
“ The horrid, rude thing,” she scolded to her- 
self. “ ‘ I wouldn’t give up anyway, and just 
sit around and cry about it.’ How perfectly 
horrid.” Suddenly she laughed. ‘‘ I was some- 
what tearful. Slightly lachrymose, so to 
speak.” 

She stuffed the envelopes into her pocket 
and stood up. The little song-sparrow flitted 
into view again and she studied it thoughtfully. 
“ I believe that there is something in what Ada 
says. I might perhaps try writing some sim- 
ple little stories about the birds and flowers for 
the wee little children,” she reasoned, her keen 
mind ever alert to new ideas. 

Thrusting her hands deep into her sweater 
pockets she turned toward home, her mind 


230 


MARGERY MORRIS 


busy with some lines she had learned in school 
and which she could not now remember. 

“ ‘ There is some soul/ ” she repeated to her- 
self; “‘there is some soul’ — bother, what 
comes next? ‘ Some soul,’ then something 
about ‘ in things evil.’ I wish I could remem- 
ber it ! ‘ There is some soul.’ Oh, I know. 
‘ There is some soul in things evil would men 
willingly distil it out.’ Well, I have to distil 
it out of the evil of being an unsuccessful 
authoress ! ” She stopped and broke off a bit 
of flowering huckleberry bush to put in her 
buttonhole. “ But to think,” she smiled, 
“ that Ada should be my comfort and guide! ” 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE SURPRISE 

Mrs. Jameson was waiting on the steps of 
Pine Cottage for Polly when she came home 
from school at the noon hour. 

“ Polly,” she cried gayly, “ I have a sur- 
prise for you! Guess what it is.” 

Polly’s face lighted up. “ What? ” she 
asked eagerly. Then determined not to be 
disappointed, she added, “Ice-cream for lunch- 
eon, I suppose.” 

“No indeed, something mueh nicer. Guess 
again.” 

“ Someone has sent us a present.” 

“ Yes, that too. But something nicer.” 

Polly thought. “ Let me see,” she hazarded, 
“ either the lawyers have found that we have 
more money than we thought we have, or some- 
body nice is coming to see us.” 

“ You’re getting warm. Whom would you 
like to see? ” 


231 


232 MARGERY MORRIS 

Polly thought again. “ I believe,” she said, 
sinking down on the lowest step with her books 
balanced on her knee, “ that I’d rather see 
Esther than anyone else.” 

“ Good guess. Esther is coming this after- 
noon! And Dick and Sam are coming with 
her. And Jane and Perry and Jack are com- 
ing from New York. They are all going to 
be at the Inn for the week end, and you are to 
go over there and stay with Margery, too.” 

Polly bounded up the steps, taking two at 
a time, and seized her mother around the waist. 
“Oh, Mother,” she squealed, “how perfect! 
When did it happen? How did it happen? 
Isn’t it perfect? Why didn’t you tell me be- 
fore? ” 

Mrs. Jameson settled the belt that Polly’s 
frantic hugs had pulled awry. “ My dear 
child, remember you’re not a bear! Mrs. 
Morris and I have been talking about it. She 
felt that it was lonely here for you two girls 
and that you ought to have some young society. 
But she dreaded speaking about it to you, for 
Margery still gets easily upset over things and 
can’t sleep. And she was afraid that she might 
get over-excited over anticipations. Besides, 


IN THE PINE WOODS 233 


if it bid fair to be a stormy week end the others 
were not to come, and she dreaded having you 
and Margery disappointed. That would have 
been worse than if you expected nothing. So 
we decided that we would keep quiet until we 
saw how things were going to shape up. Now 
luncheon will be ready in a minute — run up- 
stairs and brush your hair.” 

Polly dashed up the stairs to the little room 
on the third floor, and seizing her hair-brush by 
its back, attacked her hair as though she were 
grooming a horse. The luncheon gong 
sounded while her hair was still hanging about 
her face like a long dark veil. Without stop- 
ping to plait it she tied it back with a ribbon 
and ran to the door. 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, as she caught sight of 
something on the bed, “ what’s that? ” 

On her narrow cot-bed a little gray frock 
was spread out, a knowing little frock, with 
snowy ruffles at the neck and sleeves. Beside 
it was a wide black hat of the severely simple 
variety that Polly liked best. 

“ Oh ! ” she exclaimed again, as she held the 
frock up to her, and inspected the result in the 
mirror, ‘‘ isn’t it stunning? But Mother 


234 MARGERY MORRIS 

oughtn’t to have done it. She’ll go without 
something she ought to have to make up for 
it. I do wish ” 

The luncheon gong soimded again, and 
Polly ran down-stairs, an anxious little frown 
between her pretty curved eyebrows. 

“ Oh, Mother,” she whispered, as she sank 
into her place beside her mother, “ it’s lovely, 
but you oughtn’t to have bought it, you really 
shouldn’t.” 

Her mother recognized her anxiety and 
smiled reassuringly at her, though her atten- 
tion was claimed just at that moment by a 
stout and perpetually complaining lady at the 
other end of the table. 

“ Yes, Mrs. Wilson,” she said soothingly, 
“ I’ll have Katie heat some milk for you just 
as soon as the vegetables are passed. Miss 
Stanley, I ordered that asparagus especially 
for you.” 

Polly waited breathlessly until her mother 
could turn to her. “ It’s all right, dear,” Mrs. 
J ameson told her in a low tone. “ So don’t 
worry your young heart and head over it. 
Mrs. Morris was ordering some things for 
Margery from a shop in New York that makes 


IN THE PINE WOODS 235 


a specialty of clothes for schoolgirls, and she 
asked so sweetly to be allowed to order these 
for you that I couldn’t refuse. And I remem- 
ber when we were able to do things for people 
what a pleasure it was, so, you see, I know that 
she was sincere in what she said. She has a 
blue frock just like yours for Margery, and a 
big red hat like your black one. We thought 
the gi’ay dress would be younger than the 
sombre black for you. The lines are so simple 
that it ought to fit.” 

Miss Stanley interrupted her. “ Do you 
know, Polly, that you are eating the wrong end 
of your asparagus? ” 

Polly blushed furiously, then joined cheer- 
fully in the laughter of the others. I was 
pretty rapt,” she admitted. 

After luncheon Polly flew up the stairs 
again to try on the new frock. The lines were 
so simple that it did fit, as Mrs. Jameson had 
thought, and was very becoming besides. 

“ I’ll just finish fixing this hem,” said her 
mother, who had followed to see how the frock 
fitted, “ and then it will be perfect. Hadn’t 
you better run off to school now? ” she added 
teasingly. 


236 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Polly looked at her mother blankly. “ I 
never thought of school,” she murmured. 

Mrs. Jameson laughed. “ I was merely 
teasing you. You’re excused from school this 
afternoon.” 

When Polly came down-stairs attired in the 
new frock and with the new hat put on at ex- 
actly the right angle over her dark hair, which 
she wore to-day clubbed up at the back of her 
neck with a black ribbon, like a gay young 
cavalier, she found the five rest-cure ladies 
waiting on the veranda. 

“We wanted to see how you looked in 
the dress,” explained Mrs. Wilson. “ Turn 
around and let’s see the back.” 

Polly obediently wheeled. 

“ Well,” sighed Mrs. Wilson, “ it is nice to 
have something young about. It keeps you 
up on things. I think that I’ll have my plum 
broadcloth made over just like this dress of 
Polly’s.” 

Miss Stanley gave Polly a little push. 
“ Run along, you bad child,” she whispered, 
“ or you’ll make me laugh at the thought of 
Mrs. Wilson, two hundred pounds and all, 
dressed like a girl of fifteen.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 237 


Polly flashed back a grateful glance as she 
ran down the steps. It was so nice, she 
thought, to have Miss Stanley willing to be 
friendly. 

Margery was watching for her, and as 
Polly came in sight stuck her head out of the 
window to call, ‘‘ Isn’t it wonderful? Won’t 


Her mother drew her back and closed the 
window, and Margery flew to meet Polly at 
the head of the stairs. 

“ Just as soon as I get my hat on, Polly,” 
she babbled, ‘‘ we’ll go right down to the sta- 
tion to meet Jane and the others. Esther is 
going to motor over from Renwyck’s Town 
with Sam Rennet and Dick and Elizabeth 
Rennet — she wanted to visit some friends who 
have a cottage here, so she announced that she 
was coming along with the others to give age 
and respectability.” 

“Are the others to be right here in the Inn? ” 
asked Polly as soon as she could get a word in 
edgewise. 

“ Yes, right in this corridor, and you are to 
be in my room with me. Oh, look what time 
it is ! We’ll have to hurry.” 


238 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Mrs. Morris came in from the other room 
while Margery pinned on the big red hat that 
was the same size and shape as Polly’s black 
one. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Morris,” Polly began, “ how can 
I ever thank you for the lovely, lovely dress? 
I, well, I ” 

“ Yes, isn’t it nice to feel that we’re twins,” 
Margery cut in; “see, your dress is exactly 
like this blue one. I wanted a black hat, but 
Mother thought the red would give me more 
color. I’m so pale since I was ill. Hurry up. 
We’ll have to tear! You can talk another 
time I ” 

She seized Polly’s hand, and together, laugh- 
ing and breathless, they ran down the stairs 
and out into the spring sunshine. 

The railway station at Pine Lake was a tiny 
one-roomed box set in the woods at one side of 
a little ravine where a brook meandered and 
the ferns and wild-flowers grew. 

“We have lots of time, you foolish child,” 
laughed Polly as she sat down on one of the 
hard, straight seats and looked at the clock. 
“ You might have let me stop and talk to your 
mother.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 239 


“ Yes, I got over-excited,” returned Mar- 
gery frankly. “ It’s been so long since I’ve 
had any gayety that it went to my head! I’ll 
have to be careful when they get here or I’ll 
be just plain silly.” 

Polly chuckled; Margery’s frankness always 
amused her. Then she grew silent and 
thoughtful. “ It’s hard to realize, isn’t it,” she 
said, breaking the pause that had fallen be- 
tween the two girls, “ that it’s only a little over 
three months since we waited like this in the 
station at Renwyck’s Town for Jane and 
Perry and Jack. So much has happened that 
we never thought could happen.” 

“ Yes,” answered Margery seriously, “ it 
seems as though everything has happened.” 
She, too, grew silent and thoughtful. Her 
father was in danger; sorrow had come to 
Polly; might it not come to her? 

A long, far-away toot from a locomotive 
roused her from her revery. 

“ There’s the train,” she said, sliding closer 
to Polly and linking her arm in hers. “ We’ll 
have to brace up and look cheerful. Oh,” she 
stopped short. 

“ What’s the matter? ” 


240 MARGERY MORRIS 

“ We forgot all about it. To-day’s the day 
those boys and girls were going to stay after 
school and clean the place up for Miss Martin. 
Mother told Miss Martin to order cake and ice- 
cream, and I suppose she expects us to come, 
too.” 

There was another toot from the locomotive, 
nearer this time. 

“ Well, why can’t we go? That will make 
something to do. We’ll make everybody pitch 
in and help. Can’t you imagine how funny 
Jack will be? ” 

“ Killing! Come on out and wait on the 
platform now.” 

The train drew in, and the girls ran down 
the platform to meet Jane and her step- 
brothers, who were just getting out of the rear 
coach. 

For the first moment everyone felt a little 
shy and strange. They had not seen Polly 
since her father’s death, and both Jack and 
Jane felt that they ought to show their sym- 
pathy in some way, while Perry was absorbed 
in watching Margery. In spite of the becom- 
ing glow cast by the big red hat he thought 
that she looked very white and thin, quite dif- 



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IN THE PINE WOODS 241 


ferent from the healthy, sunburnt girl he had 
known the summer before. 

Jack broke the ice by dragging a banana 
from his pocket which he solemnly presented 
to Margery. 

“ He would eat bananas on the way down,” 
Jane explained. “ Perry and I were ashamed 
of him.” 

“ So ashamed that they ate up all the 
bananas. It was only by the greatest effort 
that I could save this for you, Margery.” 

“ Thank you very much. Jack. I’ll save it 
as a memento of you.” 

“ Oh, it isn’t as a memento of me — it’s to 
remind you of the gorgeous Italian gentleman 
that I’m sure must have won your heart down 
here. Macaroni! ” he warbled, “ ‘ Donna e 
mobile! ^ Ba-naa-naa! ” 

They all laughed and Margery assured him 
that he was to meet the Italian gentleman a 
little later in the afternoon, and set him a good 
example by scrubbing the schoolhouse floor. 

After that they all felt at ease, and it was 
with their old time comradeship that they set 
off for the short walk beside the lake to the Inn. 
Jane hung on to Margery’s arm, and Perry 


242 


MARGERY MORRIS 


walked beside them, while Jack attached him- 
self to Polly. But he was forever finding 
some bird’s nest that he had to climb up to look 
into, or thinking that he had found a new 
variety of flower or fish or mushroom which 
he had to stop to investigate. 

“ I never saw anyone so anxious as Jack to 
be a naturalist,” observed Perry, as Jack, who 
had lingered over a particularly poisonous- 
looking toadstool, hallooed for them to wait 
for him, “ and have so little success in it. It’s 
his latest fad.” 

“ Oh, there are the others,” cried Polly 
as a car came in view. “ See, there’s 
Esther! ” 

Esther’s rosy face beamed with delight at 
the sight of her beloved Polly and Margery, 
and if Dick’s and Sam’s enthusiasm was less 
openly expressed it was no less sincere. 

“ What shall we do now? ” asked Margery, 
turning to Dick as usual for aid. 

“ Don’t you think that it would be a good 
plan to take the others’ bags back to the Inn, 
and then we can all pile in the car and ride 
around to see the sights of Pine Lake. I was 
talking to your mother at the Inn, we stopped 


IN THE PINE WOODS 243 


there first — and see what you think of the 
plans we made.” 

“ Come on, Margery,” called Sam. “ Hop 
up on the running-board, and I’ll run you 
back to the Inn. Hold on tight, girls.” 

They were only a stone’s throw from the 
Inn, and Margery had no opportunity to ask 
Dick what was the plan. 

“ Dick,” she inquired an hour afterward, 
“ what was your scheme? ” 

They had had cake and lemonade on the 
Inn veranda, the travellers had unpacked their 
bags and washed off the cinders and the dust, 
and now they were all piled into Sam’s auto- 
mobile. The lake had been circled twice, and 
it had been decided that they might as well 
head for the schoolhouse. 

“ I didn’t tell you, did I?” Dick answered, 
turning his gaze from the flight of a wild duck 
to Margery’s face. “ Well, it’s this: I’ve been 
awfully interested in your plan of teaching 
your foreign neighbors here something about 
what America means. I think it’s a bully 
idea.” 

“ Yes, isn’t it? It took Polly and me to 
think up a plan like that,” Margery answered 


244 MARGERY MORRIS 

with an assumed demureness that delighted 
Dick. 

“ But why, Madame Self-Satisfaction,” he 
laughed, “ do you draw the line and only teach 
the foreigners what America means? It 
seems to me that it is Americans who need it 
the most.” 

Margery was serious at once. “ Yes,” she 
agreed, “ that is so. I suppose,” wistfully, 
“ that we don’t begin to be patriotic.” 

“ The dictionary gives the definition of 
‘ patriot ’ as ‘ One who works for the welfare 
of his country.’ Most people think if they 
brag about it that is enough.” 

“ The chief impression I got from my Amer- 
ican history books, when I was a kid,” Perry 
put in, “ was that we could lick all creation. 
And that just being an American meant that 
you were smarter than the next fellow, par- 
ticularly if he happened to be a Frenchman or 
an Englishman. Of course we are smarter,” 
he added with a laugh, “ but we ought to have 
a little decent restraint in mentioning it. But 
what’s your grand scheme. Dicky-bird? ” 

“ It’s this. It’s just along the line of what 
you said about our history books. How are 


IN THE PINE WOODS 245 

people going to understand America unless 
they know more about her real history? Now 
I thought it would be fun to go to see the 
places where the beginnings of her history were 
made.” 

Margery and Perry looked blank, “ How 
do you mean? ” they asked in chorus. 

“ Why, I mean to go to see the place where 
they drew up the Declaration of Independence 
and the place where they signed it, and the 
little house where the first flag was made — and 
then did you know that the first protest against 
slavery was written in America? We ought 
to see where that was done. And we ought to 
try to understand — as well as boneheads like 
Perry here can,” and he gave Perry a friendly 
dig in the ribs, “ what it has all meant to the 
world.” 

“Do you mean, Dick,” asked Margery, 
“ that we ought to go up to Philadelphia and 
see all these places? We’ve seen Independ- 
ence Hall.” 

“ Yes, but your friend Ada and the rest 
probably haven’t.” 

“Do you mean to take them — and how 
would we get there? ” 


246 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ By automobile, of course. It isn’t such 
an endlessly long trip. In fact we ought to 
be able to do it in something over an 
hour.” 

“ That’s a mighty fine scheme, sonny,” 
agreed Perry, “ and I’m for it every time. 
But can you tell me, little maid, how you ex- 
pect us all to pile into one car? If we bring 
all of Polly’s schoolmates it might be a trifle 
hard on the springs.” 

Dick gave him another friendly punch and 
Perry punched back. 

“ Oh, boys,” implored Margery as their 
blows came perilously near her head, “ do have 
mercy on my hat. It’s the only new one I’ve 
had this year! ” 

“Yea, yea!” encouraged Sam from the 
front seat. “ Have a good time, children, but 
be careful of the ladies’ millinery.” 

Laughing, the boys stopped their scuffling 
and settled quietly back in their places, while 
Margery settled her hat. “A big chapeau 
isn’t quite the thing for motoring,” she ob- 
served mildly, “ especially when one is with 
children or lunatics.” 

Dick and Perry bowed solemnly in token of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 247 

the compliment, while Jack, always dramatic, 
smote his forehead and clutched at the air in 
mock despair. 

“ You geese,” said Polly severely, “ now do 
be quiet and let Dick tell us how we are to get 
to Philadelphia.” 

“ Why, it’s this way,” Dick explained. 

Grandfather thinks that it is high time we 
boys did something to try to return some of 
the girls’ hospitality. You girls have all been 
mighty sweet about having us boys at your 
houses — and it’s especially charitable toward 
that worthless beggar Perry there.” 

Margery held out a firm hand. “ Wait un- 
til you get out of the car to fight that out,” she 
laughed. “ Go on, Dick.” 

“ So I stopped at the garage here this after- 
noon and found that we can hire a car and a 
good reliable chauffeur for to-morrow. I 
spoke to Mrs. Morris about it, as well as I 
could for the noise you all made — she is going 
to think about it some more and if she is will- 
ing we will go to-morrow morning. Some of 
us in this car and some in the other. And as 
there will be two extra places, I thought per- 
haps you would like to take your friends Ada 


248 


MARGERY MORRIS 


and Rosa, and show Ada something of what 
this detested country has done.” 

Polly and Margery looked at each other 
rapturously. “ It would be fine to take Ada, 
wouldn’t it? ” Margery said. 

“ Fine,” agreed Polly. 

“ What’s that forlorn shanty ahead of us? ” 
asked Jack. “ Is that the schoolhouse? ” 

“ That’s the palace,” returned Polly, “where 
your lordship is going to help scrub the floor. 
Oh, look, Margery, there is Mr. Beacon stand- 
ing by the road there.” 

Sam drew up with a flourish that he had 
practised long to achieve and they all got out. 
The others went into the schoolhouse, but 
Margery lingered to speak to Mr. Beacon. 

“ Well, it’s wonderful what those ferns and 
fixin’ have done,” Mr. Beacon commented, 
gravely inspecting the schoolhouse, his head 
thrust forward on his long body, and his 
hands deep in his pockets. “ Yes, it’s wonder- 
ful.” 

The laurel and the honeysuckle banked up 
against the building were not in bloom yet, 
but their greenness hid something of the dilapi- 
dation of the unpainted frame wall. The 


IN THE PINE WOODS 249 


ferns were slowly unfolding and the blue of 
the lupins and the white of the turkey beard 
gave a note of gayety. 

“ Those laurel bushes and the holly and 
cedar bushes will be green in the winter, too, 
Mr. Beacon.” 

“ That’s so. Yes, the place would look real 
nice if the grass wasn’t trampled out. It 
seems like we ought to fix up a playground 
somewhere back of the building so that the 
grass around the front could be kept nice. I 
think I’ll come over some morning and sow 
some grass seed — if you’ll undertake to keep 
the children from trampling it before it ever 
gets a chance to grow.” 

“ Indeed I will,” Margery promised rashly. 

“ What’s going on in there? ” 

“ Oh, some of the boys and girls have stayed 
after school to clean the room for Miss Mar- 
tin — you know she usually has to do all the 
work a janitor would do. They are having re- 
freshments and making quite a party out 
of it.” 

“ Hmmm. Think that scrubbing will make 
much difference to it? ” 

“ No, it’s really kept very clean already. 


250 MARGERY MORRIS 

What it needs is some fresh paint and paper. 
But of course that isn’t any of my business, 
and I oughtn’t to be concerning myself in it, 
I suppose.” 

“ Hmm.” 

“ Do you see that boy over there? ” re- 
marked Margery, thinking that it was time 
perhaps to change the subject. “ That boy 
who just came to the door with a broom in his 
hand? ” 

“ Yes. What about him? ” 

“ It’s so funny! He has plagued the life 
out of a boy named Bucci because he scrubbed 
floors for his mother when she was sick. He 
tells the Bucci boy that scrubbing is ‘ woman’s 
work.’ So do a lot of the others for that mat- 
ter. Of course he absolutely scorned the idea 
of staying at school to scrub or clean, and made 
a fuss about it. And then when he found 
there were to be refreshments he had an awful 
time to back down and pretend that he always 
believed in making himself useful. My friend 
Polly J ameson was telling me about it and we 
were both so amused.” 

“ Those boys and girls that just went in 
there were friends of yours? ” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 251 


“ Yes, they're spending the week end with 
us, and they are going to help, too/’ 

“ Well, it strikes me I’d better do some help- 
ing myself. Guess I might do some carpen- 
tering on those shutters, and a coat of white- 
wash inside and out would help.” 

“ Why don’t you make the children work 
with you? Remember, you said when you do 
a thing yourself you always value it more.” 

Mr. Beacon looked at her in admiration. 
“ Well, if you aren’t the beatingest girl to re- 
member what I said! Hello! That’s a good 
sign! ” 

“ What’s a good sign? ” asked Margery, 
moving toward the schoolhouse to join the 
others. 

Mr. Beacon pointed to two crows that had 
just alighted on the ridge-pole of the school 
roof. “ Those crows,” he said briefly. 

“Are crows a good sign? ” 

“ Don’t you know the old saying? ‘ One for 
sorrow, two for mirth.’ We’ll have to see what 
we can do to help the crows along and have 
some more mirth in the school — make it a 
brighter, prettier place, and something in the 
community life.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


HISTORIC SHRINES 

“ There was an old chap about a hundred 
years ago,” remarked Dick, “ who wrote a book 
called ‘A Pleasant Peregrination through the 
Prettiest Parts of Pennsylvania, by Peregrine 
Prolix/ Grandfather has a copy of it.” 

“ That’s what we will be doing as soon as we 
get off this ferry,” laughed Margery. “Hav- 
ing a ‘ pleasant peregrination.’ Well, we’ll be 
in Pennsylvania in a few minutes.” 

They were on the ferry that crossed the 
wide Delaware to Philadelphia. Early that 
morning they had left Pine Lake, motored in 
the first dewy freshness of the day through the 
woods and the rich farming country beyond, 
and now in the middle of the morning were 
close to the objects of their trip. 

“ Where shall we go first? ” asked Jane. 

“ Well,” said Dick, slowly, “ we can’t see 
everything. What would you like most of 
all? ” 


262 


IN THE PINE WOODS 253 


“ Oh, I don’t know. You’re boss of this 
expedition.” 

“ Rosa, what do you want to see first? ” 

“ Da movin’ pictures.” 

Dick was plainly somewhat dashed. 

“ Well ” he said vaguely. “ What about 

you, Ada? ” 

“ I don’t care,” answered Ada curtly. She 
had been secretly much pleased to be invited to 
join the party, but she took care to conceal 
that fact from her hosts and hostesses. 

“ Suppose we go back and ask Mother,” 
suggested Margery, and together she and Dick 
picked their way along the crowded deck of 
the ferry-boat to the other automobile. 

“ It’s no use, Dick, just showing them 
battlefields and things like that,” Margery de- 
clared. “ We ought to show them the places 
where something was done like signing the first 
protest against slavery, or something like that. 
Don’t you think so. Mother? ” 

“Yes, dear. Your words are rather vague 
and involved. But I think I see your mean- 
ing. We must visit the places where great 
ideals came into being, not just places of 
worldly advancement. Suppose, Dick, that 


254 


MARGERY MORRIS 


we go first to Independence Hall and look at 
the portrait of Penn.” 

Margery had been before to the beautiful, 
dignified old State House, and she and Dick 
looked at each other and laughed as they 
thought of the fun they had had there before. 

Rosa's big brown eyes opened wide at the 
serene and mellow beauty of the old building. 
“ It is so pretty,” she said softly to Polly. “ I 
like da things dat is pretty.” 

Jane was delighted. “ Why, it’s beautiful, 
Margery! Ever so much more so than mod- 
ern buildings.” 

But Ada was scornfully silent. “ Oh, yes, 
it is beautiful,” she said at last, when Margery 
pressed her for an opinion. “ There are 
beautiful buildings in all countries.” 

“ That is true,” agreed Mrs. Morris tact- 
fully. “And now we must go and look at the 
picture of Penn.” 

Smiling a little to herself she led Ada 
through the building until they stopped be- 
fore the portrait of Penn as a young man. 

“ What do you know about William Penn, 
Ada? ” she asked. 

“ Oh, I have read about him. Pennsyl- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


255 


vania is named after him, and you see his pic- 
tures in the advertisements.” 

“ He always struck me as an awfully unin- 
teresting old boy,” observed Perry. “ So fat 
and pudgy — ^looks as though he needed more 
exercise.” 

“ You dreadful children! ” cried Mrs. Mor- 
ris. “And yet I don’t know that I blame you. 
The advertisements are rather dreadful. But 
just look at that portrait! That isn’t fat and 
pudgy!” 

She waved her hand toward the painting of 
the handsome, manly boy, in steel breastplate 
and lace cravat, and the long curls of the 
cavalier flowing over his armor-clad shoulders. 

“ See how beautiful those dark eyes are,” 
she said, “ and what a charming mouth he had. 
Someone, when he was alive, once described 
him as ‘ the handsomest, best looking and live- 
liest of gentlemen.’ ” 

“ Didn’t he call the Vice-Chancellor of Ox- 
ford ‘ a poor mushroom ’? ” asked Polly. 

Mrs. Morris laughed. “ Yes, I believe he 
did when there was some trouble at college over 
Penn’s taking up the Quaker faith. But he 
was more than a handsome, high-spirited boy. 


256 


MARGERY MORRIS 


he was a great dreamer of dreams who made 
his visions into reality. 

“ It is almost impossible for us in these days 
of religious toleration, when anyone may wor- 
ship God as he pleases, to realize what a great 
experiment it was considered for Penn to open 
up a new colony where all might worship as 
they please, where laws and taxes were to be 
equally fair to Quaker, Catholic, Congrega- 
tionalist or Jew.” 

“And he treated the Indians fairly too,” 
said Polly. “ I suppose they considered that 
terribly reckless! ” 

“ Dreadfully. To treat the poor Indian 
with kindness and to make allowances for his 
being an Indian was considered little short of 
wicked by some of the other colonists. But 
Penn’s ‘ Holy Experiment,’ as it was called, 
was the beginning of a great movement toward 
liberty and tolerance, and it seemed only a step 
from that to the document that was signed in 
this very building, the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, which set forth the right of all to 
‘ life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.’ ” 

“And now,” said Dick, as they turned away 
from the portrait, “ suppose we go out to Ger- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 257 


mantown and see the little old house where the 
first protest against slavery was signed, and 
incidentally see a pretty old town, and then 
after luncheon well visit Carpenter’s Hall, 
where the First Continental Congress was held, 
and the Betsy Ross House, where the first flag 
was made, and all the ‘ bother hobjects hof 
hinterest,’ as the old Englishman we have at 
the farm now would say! ” 

Ada was silent as they got into the automo- 
biles again and went out through the city to 
the wide beautiful drive in the park beside the 
pretty, lazy Schuylkill River. Rosa chat- 
tered gayly away with the others, interested in 
the amusing sights along the way, and in the 
quaint little house once belonging to William 
Penn which they passed in the park. 

“ You don’t know much more about America 
than I do,” Ada said suddenly to Margery. 

‘‘ That is so,” Margery admitted frankly. 
“ I know enough to love it, though.” 

Jack was bored by Ada’s seriousness. ‘‘ I 
have heard it said — by myself, it is true ” — he 
remarked, “ that a little love is a dangerous 
thing, and a little lover more dangerous.” 

“ Gracious,” exclaimed Margery, “ I sup- 


258 MARGERY MORRIS 

pose the first thing we know well be grown up 
and have to have lovers ! How perfectly hor- 
rible! I’d never thought of that! ” 

Dick looked at her and laughed. “ In the 
meantime, prepare yourself by looking at those 
sheep. Aren’t they picturesque? ” 

“ Thank you for the compliment, Dick. I 
suppose you mean to imply that the only lovers 
I’m likely to have are mutton-heads? ” 

“ Perhaps so,” said Dick shortly. 

In the other car they were also discussing 
lovers. 

“ I’m sure it is,” Esther was maintaining 
stoutly. 

“ But why,” Polly was asking, “ didn’t she 
marry him? ” 

“ Because she was needed at home, her 
parents were old and sick, and he had his 
mother to support, and he was awfully poor. 
And, well, somehow they drifted apart.” 

“ But are you sure he’s the one? ” 

“Almost. He sounds as though he were.” 
“Do you mean to say, Esther, that Deb- 
orah Davis was once engaged to the Mr. 
Beacon who is on the school board?” put in 
Mrs. Morris. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


259 


I don’t know that it was that Mr. Beacon, 
Mrs. Morris. But her sister came to visit her 
about a month ago. Mother met her and she 
told her that years ago Deborah was almost 
engaged to a man named Beacon and that she 
hadn’t heard of him for years. Her sister 
said the family were always sorry she hadn’t 
married him, for he really cared for her. 
Beacon is such a queer name that I think it 
might be the same one.” 

“ Oh, I’m sure it is,” Polly cried enthusi- 
.astically. “ Couldn’t we have Deborah over, 
Mrs. Morris, and have them meet again? It 
would be so romantic ! ” 

“You ridiculous children! It may not be 
the same man at all. But I do want to have 
Deborah over some time — not to poke her at 
any Mr. Beacon, but because we would enjoy 
her society. Margery is devoted to her.” 

They left the river-drive and wound up the 
hill through the pleasant streets of German- 
town to the quaint old winding Main Street, 
where stands the little house in which the first 
protest against slavery was signed. 

“ I wonder how much of this means any- 
thing to Ada,” said Mrs. Morris as they passed 


260 


MARGERY MORRIS 


some handsome old Colonial houses, in one of 
which Washington had lived. “ I think that I 
shall have to offer a prize for the best paper on 
patriotism and see what happens.” 

The cars stopped before a little old house, 
and they got out to read the inscription by its 
door. 

“ How strange it seems,” said Mrs. Morris, 
“ that only two hundred years ago the idea of 
slavery should have been accepted perfectly 
placidly all over the world. And how opinion 
against it evolved. First religious liberty, then 
political liberty, and then personal liberty for 
everyone.” 

“ You see, Ada,” said Polly, it must be 
confessed rather triumphantly, “ we have done 
some little things in America to make the 
world better.” 

“And I should have liked to add,” Polly con- 
fided to Esther as she took her place again in 
the automobile, “ that we did them some time 
before Ada came here to teach us. But I 
really was too polite! ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


LITTLE LUCY 

Margery was sitting on the steps of the Inn 
porch composing a letter to Jane. She was 
trying to make it an unusually amusing letter 
and an interesting one, too, for Jane had con- 
fessed that she read parts of Margery’s letters 
to her mother and stepbrothers. 

Whenever she had been with Jack and 
Perry she had thoroughly enjoyed their society 
and thought them pleasant, friendly boys, and 
had teased Jack or talked more seriously with 
Perry in her usual natural unconscious fash- 
ion. But now they had suddenly seemed to 
grow into vague unreal people who had her 
letters read to them, and who perhaps made 
comments upon her epistolary style; comments 
that might not be favorable. 

With painstaking care as to spelling and a 
rather forced wit she wrote down an account 
of old Mrs. Harrison and her daughter who 
sat at the next table in the dining-room. Then 
261 


262 


MARGERY MORRIS 


with a sigh she crossed it out. “ Perry and 
Jack wouldn’t be interested in two old ladies,” 
she told herself. 

Nothing coming into her mind to take the 
place of the crossed out words, she sat biting 
the end of her fountain pen and staring out at 
the lake, while common sense slowly returned 
to her. 

“ Boo,” she said at last taking a fresh piece 
of paper, “ what a double-dyed goose I am ! 
I’ll write a sensible letter to Jane about the 
things that will interest her, and forget all 
about the boys. They’re making me silly and 
self-conscious.” 

She had just finished a cheerful, friendly 
little letter, when she spied Polly coming along 
the lake road. 

“ Hello, Polly! What’s the excitement? 
You’re coming as though the witches were 
after you!” 

“ Or the Indians,” laughed Polly, sitting 
down on the step beside Margery. “ That re- 
minds me of the time when I was about ten 
and I wrote a very hair-raising adventure 
story. In it I made my heroine see her lover 
being chased by the Indians, and cry out, ‘ Oh, 


IN THE PINE WOODS 263 


the Indians are after him, and he is coming 
somewhat quickly.’ I was reading it aloud to 
Father and Mother and when I came to that 
part, Father looked at Mother and said very 
quietly, ‘Yes, I should think that he would 
come somewhat quickly if the Indians were 
after him.’ Oh, I was teased about it for 
years.” 

Margery laughed in sympathy. She knew 
that Polly loved to speak of her father, and of 
all the pleasant trifling incidents of their life 
together. 

“ I’ve come to see if you can’t spend the 
night with me,” Polly went on. “Mrs. Stenton 
is coming down over Sunday to see how the 
cottage is being run — a tour of inspection, in 
fact. She wrote to Mother to have the sleep- 
ing-cabin opened up, as she would sleep there. 
So Mother had it cleaned and aired and all the 
beds made up. Mrs. Stenton is bringing the 
little girl she adopted and a nurse. That’s 
why she wants the cabin opened — she thinks it 
would be quieter for the baby there. 

“ I’m to sleep in the cabin, too, to act as 
watch-dog, and save Mrs. Stenton from bur- 
glars and highwaymen. And also to run and 


264 


MARGERY MORRIS 


fetch for them. Mrs. Stenton and company, I 
mean; not the burglars and highwaymen. As 
it’s Friday Mother said I could ask you to 
spend the night with me there. Come along, — 
there’s a lamb.” 

“ I’d love to. Come in while I persuade 
Mother. Ever since the first day we peeked 
into the windows of the sleeping-cabin I’ve 
been crazy to stay in it. It is the duckiest 
little place. Come on, we’ll go up-stairs to 
Mother.” 

Margery had been so infinitely better of late 
that Mrs. Morris was at first inclined to take 
no risks. “ You’re looking like a different 
child from what you were a week ago, and I do 
so want to take you home well and strong. 
The cabin has been closed all winter and I am 
afraid you will feel the change from the warm 
Inn.” 

“ But, Mother, it has been all warmed and 
aired for Mrs. Stenton. She’s bringing a baby 
there, you know. And, Mother-lamby-dear, 
I’ll promise, solemnly promise, not to contract 
leprosy, cholera, or bubonic plague. Neither 
to get chilled nor overheated. And I swear 
not to jump out of the window or slide down 


IN THE PINE WOODS 265 


the roof. Is there anything else that might 
happen to me? Anyway, I’ll promise not to 
let it happen.” 

“ Not a thing, you ridiculous child! Well, 
run along, but be careful about taking cold. 
Take your warm wrapper with you, and your 
sweater.” 

On their way to Pine Cottage the girls met 
a stiffly starched white-clad nurse and an un- 
usually pretty little girl of about three. 

“ That’s Mrs. Stenton’s little adopted 
daughter,” Polly explained. “ Isn’t she a little 
beauty? ” 

“ Isn’t she, though ! A perfect beauty ! Do 
you know, Polly, she looks Italian with those 
dark eyes and that hair. She reminds me a 
little of the Bucci children. If they were 
scrubbed up, and dressed like this child, the}^ 
would really be as pretty. Especially the 
youngest.” 

“ Yes, I believe that they would. Isn’t this 
one daintily dressed? ” 

They stopped and tried to speak to the child, 
but she drew back shyly. 

“ Speak to the young ladies, Lucy,” urged 
the nurse. 


266 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Whimpering, the child seized a corner of her 
nurse’s apron and tried to hide under it. 

“ Oh, now, Lucy, don’t do that! Come out, 
speak to the nice young ladies. Can’t you 
shake hands with them? ” 

“ No — no,” protested Lucy. 

“We had better not pay any attention to 
her,” suggested Polly, and both girls affected 
an absorbing interest in a scarlet tanager 
perched on a near-by bush. In a moment they 
were rewarded by the sight of a pair of great 
brown eyes peeping at them from under the 
edge of the apron. 

“ See the pretty bird,” remarked Polly to no 
one in particular. 

“ Lucy see a birdie,” a little hand was tucked 
in hers. 

“ Well, you’re a dear little chick-a-biddy,” 
laughed Margery as with a parting wave to the 
baby she and Polly went on their way. 

“ Mother is really quite nervous over this 
visit of Mrs. Stenton’s,” confided Polly. 

“ Yes, I should think she would be. Is Mrs. 
S teuton very awe-inspiring? ” 

“ She doesn’t look a bit distinguished — yet 
somehow she is terrifying. I can’t describe it.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 26T 


“ It must be pretty bad if you can’t de- 
scribe it.” 

Mrs. Stenton was standing on the veranda 
steps of Pine Cottage as the girls drew near 
it. She was a little dark stout woman with a 
high nose and an air of being overwhelmed by 
her own importance. 

‘‘ She looks as though she had on an invis- 
ible diamond crown,” whispered Margery. 

“ Sh, sh, don’t make me giggle.” 

“ Did you see the baby? ” Mrs. Stenton in- 
quired, as soon as they came close to the steps. 

“ Yes, Mrs. Stenton,” they both answered 
at once. “And she was so sweet and funny.” 

Mrs. Stenton’s face softened. “ She is a 
dear little girl, isn’t she? ” she answered. 

“ Oh, she’s darling.” 

“ Margery,” asked Polly, “ did you notice 
how Mrs. Stenton’s face softened when she 
spoke of the baby this afternoon? Evidently 
she is crazy about her.” 

The two girls were sitting on the steps of the 
sleeping-cabin, enjoying the soft spring twi- 
light. It was after dinner and Mrs. Stenton 
and the ladies of Pine Cottage were gathered 
in its pleasant drawing-room. The baby had 


268 


MARGERY MORRIS 


been put to sleep in one of the up-stairs rooms 
of the sleeping-cabin, and her nurse was sitting 
in the little down-stairs sitting-roora^ reading a 
newspaper and rocking in a stiff little chair 
that gave forth a protesting squeak. 

“ Think of sitting indoors on an evening like 
this,’' observed Polly. 

“ That laurel bush looks like a ghost, doesn’t 
it? And, oh, Polly, isn’t the air sweet? ” 

A tiny breeze had sprung up, heavy with 
the scent of white azalea and the creamy mag- 
nolia buds. The laurel bushes just coming 
into flower glimmered white against the dark 
trunks of the pines, and in the soft gray light 
the woods beyond grew mysteriously beautiful. 
High up in the trees the birds sang their 
vespers or called sleepily. 

“ Polly ! ” Margery exclaimed suddenly in a 
whisper, “ did you see that? ” 

‘‘ Did I see what? ” 

“ Sh, don’t speak so loud ! There was some- 
thing creeping along back of those trees over 
there!” 

“ Where? ” 

“ There. Those trees over there. It looked 
like a man.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 269 


The girls sat tense, watching the edge of the 
clearing. 

“ I can’t see a thing,” Polly said at last. 
“ You must have imagined it, Margery.” 

“ No, I’m sure I saw something.” 

“ Perhaps it was a cow,” suggested Polly 
cheerfully. “ They often stray away and 
wander through the woods. Are you warm 
enough? Remember, I have to take care of 
you.” 

“ Plenty. But I’m sure I saw something.” 

The darkness grew deeper. The birds 
quieted down and went to sleep, and there was 
no sound beyond the soft rustling of the wind 
in the pines. Polly and Margery sat with 
their arms about each other, sharing Polly’s 
big cape. When they spoke it was in whis- 
pers as though the mystery of the night had 
awed them. 

“ Margery, you’re sleepy,” pronounced 
Polly, rousing herself at last. “ Let’s go up 
to bed.” 

“ Let’s.” 

“ I’ll have to run over to the cottage and get 
my dressing-gown. I forgot to bring it. Oh, 
oh, ouch! ” 


270 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Polly had started for the cottage and fallen 
violently over something in the dark, 

“ Polly, what is it? Are you hurt? What 
happened? ” 

Polly sat up and rubbed her knee. “ I came 
a cropper, didn’t I? I caught my foot in 
something.” 

Margery bent over and rubbed her hands 
across the grass. “ Why, how funny, Polly. 
There’s a ladder lying here. That’s what you 
caught your foot in. No wonder you fell.” 

“ Oh, yes, the painter left it here. They 
are going to paint the cottage soon. I’m not 
hurt. Just jarred.” 

She got up and limping a little went on to 
the cottage. 

“ I brought some crackers with me,” she 
said as she came back. “ Let’s go up to bed 
now.” 

Candle in hand, the girls climbed the stairs 
and went into the little room at the back of the 
house they were to share. 

“ Gracious, what’s that? ” exclaimed Mar- 
gery as she put her candle down on the bureau. 

“ Only Mrs. Stenton coming in,” answered 
Polly sleepily. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 271 


The front door closed and they could hear 
the bolt being shot home, and then came the 
rustle of silken skirts as Mrs. Stenton climbed 
the stairs to her room. 

“ How gloomy those woods over there 
look — spooky,” Margery observed as she 
raised the shade and opened the windows. 

“ You’re nervous to-night, Margie,” laughed 
Polly, thumping her pillow into a roll. “ This 
cot is as hard as a brickbat.” 

“ Mine’s so soft I roll right into the middle. 
Oh, dear me, I feel as though I were sinking 
clear through to China! You’ll have to haul 
me out in the morning.” 

“ Good-night,” answered Polly sleepily. 

“ I’ll — I’ll ” The rest was lost in a 

drowsy murmur. 

Margery lay awake for a while. She felt 
nervous and jumpy, and her mind kept return- 
ing to her father in France. Where was he? 
What was he doing? How was he faring? 

At last she grew quieter and drifted off to 
sleep. 

Suddenly she found herself sitting up in bed, 
every nerve tense. ‘‘ Polly,” she whispered. 
** Polly, what is it? ” 


272 MARGERY MORRIS 

There was no sound but Polly’s gentle even 
breathing. 

Margery lay down again. She had been 
dreaming that she had reached college at last 
and that she was captain of the basket-ball 
team. Then something had seemed to hap- 
pen; a bandit had swooped down on her team 
and carried off her best player, leaving her in 
despair. 

“ It’s just a bad dream you’ve had,” she told 
herself, and lying down again she drew the 
covers closer and tried to go to sleep. 

Suddenly she sat bolt upright again. 

There was a noise! 

From under the window there came a 
shufiling sound, and then another, as though 
something were being slowly and cautiously 
dragged close to the house. 

For a second it seemed to her that her heart 
had risen up into her throat and were going to 
strangle her. Again she heard the soft drag- 
ging shuffle. Hastily slipping out of bed she 
stole to the window. 

But she could see nothing. 

Again she heard the noise, but fainter now, 
as though it came from around the corner of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 273 


the house. Cautiously she stole back to Polly’s 
bed and shook her. 

“ What’s — what’s the matter? ” demanded 
Polly sleepily. 

“ Sh, sh,” she whispered fiercely, her hand 
on Polly’s mouth. “ There’s a queer noise 
down-stairs. I heard it.” 

“ Nonsense,” said Polly indifferently, turn- 
ing over. “ You’re nervous to-night. Let 
me go to sleep.” 

Margery shook her again. “ Polly,” she in- 
sisted, “ there is something wrong. I know it.” 

Polly sat up, wider awake now. “ What 
did you hear? ” she demanded. 

“A queer noise, as though something were 
being dragged about the house.” 

Polly swung her feet out of bed and felt for 
her slippers. 

“ Polly! What are you going to do? ” 

“ I’m going down to see what it is.” 

Margery clutched Polly by her long braid 
of bro^vn hair. “ Polly,” she implored in an 
agonized whisper. ‘‘You mustn’t! It isn’t 
safe! I won’t let you.” 

Polly hesitated. “ Well, anyway,” she 
whispered back, “ I’m going to go and look out 


274 


MARGERY MORRIS 


of that little window in the linen closet. 
That’s on the other side of the house and you 
can see all that side from it. Sh! Sh! If it 
isn’t anything, and we wake Mrs. Stenton, 
she’ll have a fit.” 

With hands that trembled a little, Polly 
groped for the door, and cautiously opened it. 
A long ray of moonlight from a window in 
the front of the hall fell across the floor. She 
hesitated a moment and clutched Margery, 
who had followed close behind her. 

“ Polly, are you scared? ” whispered Mar- 
gery. 

“Awfully.” 

Trembling, the girls stole across the narrow 
hall to the little linen closet. There they 
paused and listened. 

Suddenly they clutched each other again. 
“ Polly! That’s the noise I heard! ” 

“ We’ll have to open the window before we 
can look out. Oh, I hope it won’t squeak.” 

“ Oh, Margery! Thank goodness it’s open. 
I opened it to-day and forgot to close it. 
Thank goodness! Now then, I’m going to 
look out.” 

With a queer, dazed feeling that she was in 


IN THE PINE WOODS 275 


a dream, and that yet in all her life long she 
had never done anything but just stand in that 
dark little hole of a linen closet and clutch 
Polly around the waist while she leaned 
from that little window, Margery stood wait- 
ing. 

Suddenly Polly drew back. “ He looked 
up,” she gasped. “ I’m afraid he saw me! ” 

“ He? ” 

“ Yes, there’s a man there. I can see him 
in the moonlight. He’s doing something to 

the ladder. He’s ” 

Polly was deserted. Margery had van- 
ished. ‘‘ Margery,” she whispered shrilly, 
“ where are you? What has happened? ” 
More frightened at Margery’s disappear- 
ance than at the thought of the man outside, 
Polly tiptoed back to her room. 

At the door she collided with Margery. 
“ Oh,” they both gasped. “ Oh! ” 

“ I’ve got our pitcher of water,” Margery 
explained. “ I’m going to pour it on him I 
Hanging on to each other, they went into a 
fit of silent laughter. The midnight visit had 
suddenly ceased to be terrifying. It wa? 
funny now. 


276 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Again they crossed the moonlit hall, and 
with the pitcher carefully balanced in her hands 
Margery leaned from the window. 

“ I can’t see anything,” she complained. 
“ Oh, there he is ! He’s got the ladder up ! ” 

She raised the pitcher. There was a splash 
of water, a startled exclamation, and the sound 
of something heavy falling. 

Again the girls clasped each other in a silent 
paroxysm of the giggles. “ I’m sure he must 
be surprised,” Margery breathed. “ There 
was a lot of water in that pitcher.” She 
peeped out again. “ There isn’t anyone there. 
And the ladder is lying on the ground.” 

Little Lucy cried out suddenly. They lis- 
tened. They could hear the nurse quieting 
her, and then the house settled down to silence 
once more. 

“ We mustn’t get Mrs. Stenton excited be- 
fore morning,” Polly cautioned, and they stole 
back to their beds. 

‘‘ I think the man was scared off, and he 
probably won’t be back again, but still I’m not 
going to sleep again to-night ! ” Margery de- 
clared. She was excited and triumphant now. 
The nervous, frightened feeling she had at 


IN THE PINE WOODS 277 


first had passed off, and she felt as though she 
could laugh and chatter until morning. 

“ I wonder why Mrs. Stenton didn’t hear 
us,” she went on. 

‘‘ Oh, remember her room is at the front of 
the house and we are at the back. Besides, I 
heard Mother say one day that all these rooms 
in the cabin are sound-proof.” 

“ What do you suppose the man was after? 
Do you suppose Mrs. Stenton has some won- 
derful jewels with her? ” 

“ Oh, Margery, of course she has! I’m go- 
ing to sit up all night! ” 

“ So am I.” Margery sat up in bed and 
drew her knees up to her chin. With a sigh 
she folded her arms on her knees and leaned 
her head on her arms. She suddenly realized 
that she felt very weak and tired. 


CHAPTER XIX 


THE SEARCH 

“Well^ I must say,’’ Margery remarked 
the next day, “ that people are taking our 
bravery very coolly. Here we rescued them 
from burglars, and perhaps saved their fair 
lives, and they take it very calmly and insist 
that we were dreaming.” 

The girls were playing clock-golf in the 
small ground back of the Inn. Polly waited 
to watch her ball roll triumphantly into the cup 
before she answered. 

“ Yes, I thought that they would be so ex- 
cited, too! ” 

“ Do you suppose that we really could have 
dreamed it? But I’m sure that I remember 
stealing across that hall in the moonlight. The 
floor felt so cold! ” 

“ Nonsense! Of course we didn’t dream it! 
We both wouldn’t have dreamed the same 
278 


IN THE PINE WOODS 279 


thing, anyway. Besides, the ladder was on the 
other side of the house from what it is now 
when I fell over it.” 

“ Yes, of course, that’s true. I forgot the 
ladder.” 

“ I believe there is something in what Miss 
Stanley says. She insists that someone was 
trying to steal the ladder. Those long paint- 
ers’ ladders are expensive, and no doubt some 
of these people around here would be very 
glad to have one, to climb up on to patch the 
shingles of their roofs.” 

“ Well, anyway, the man got a surprise 
when that cold water came down on him,” 
laughed Margery. “ Oh, is it my turn? ” 

The girls forgot the incident of the night be- 
fore in the interest of their game and it was 
almost luncheon time when they stopped play- 
ing. 

As they went toward the Inn Mrs. Morris 
came to meet them. “ Your mother just 
’phoned, Polly, that Mrs. Stenton has hired 
an automobile and they are all going for a ride. 
They had early lunch and won’t be back until 
five, or a little later. You’re to have luncheon 
here with us, but it is arranged that you are to 


280 MARGERY MORRIS 

go home in the afternoon to keep an eye on 
things.” 

“ Did they take the baby? ” 

‘‘ No, she is there with the nurse. I think 
that your mother just wants you to see that the 
table is properly set for dinner to-night, and 
that things are dusted and in order. Mrs. 
Stenton insisted on her going too, but it makes 
it a little hard on her to be away and get her 
housekeeping done.” 

After luncheon Margery walked home with 
Polly. Margery was to take her afternoon 
nap in the hammock on the veranda of Pine 
Cottage, and Polly had promised to see that 
she was well wrapped up in steamer rugs. 

“I feel horribly sleepy after last night,” 
Margery sighed as Polly spread a soft warm 
rug over her, and wrapped it round her feet. 
“Oh,” she yawned. “Oh! What are you 
doing with all those books ? ” 

“ Hunting for some more ‘ pearls and 
oysters.’ I can’t let Ada get too far ahead 
of me.” 

Margery smothered another yawn. “ I 
thought the trip up to the city that day would 
make Ada rather more ‘ haffable,’ as our old 


IN THE PINE WOODS 281 


English cook used to say. But when I saw 
her the other day she scowled at me dread- 
fully.” 

“ She’s been awfully queer lately — ^almost 
as though she had something on her mind. 
And sometimes she seems rather scared and 
repentant about something, and the next min- 
ute she is hard and indifferent. But I forgot 
to tell you that she said you were ‘ kinda nice.’ 
That’s the highest praise I’ve ever heard her 
give anyone.” 

Margery laughed and tucked a cushion more 
comfortably under her cheek. “ It’s quite an 
art to sleep in a hammock,” she murmured. 
“I— I ” She was silent. 

Polly, glancing up a few minutes later, 
smiled to see her fast asleep. “ She’s getting 
so much better,” she thought tenderly, leaning 
forward to tuck in a loose end of the rug. “ In 
the past few days she has seemed to bloom 
right out. She looks so much rosier, and so 
much plumper. Well, I suppose that they 
will be going home any time now. I wonder 
when we will go. I wonder if we will be able 
to get back to Renwyck’s Town next winter.” 

Polly, too, was tired from the night before. 


282 


MARGERY MORRIS 


and sad and anxious thoughts came to harass 
her. Usually she fought such thoughts bravely, 
but to-day she let the tears roll down un- 
checked. 

“ If only my stories had been taken,” she 
sobbed. 

Margery slept on unheeding and Polly had 
her cry “ out,” as she was fond of expressing it. 

“An’ there’s the baby goin’ fer her walk,” 
said the Irish waitress at the door. “Ach, 
Miss Polly, you’ve bin cryin’ ! ” 

“ Just a little weep, Mary. Yes, there’s 
the baby. Isn’t she a duck? Sh, I mustn’t 
make so much noise. Miss Margery is asleep.” 

The nurse came down the steps of the cabin 
and put the baby into a little go-cart. Polly 
and Mary ran down the steps and across the 
little strip of grass. 

“ Oh, you cunning wee thing,” Polly cried, 
leaning over the baby. “ Have you had a 
nice sleep, dear? ” 

The baby, who had grown less shy with 
Polly, smiled, and holding her fat little hands 
in front of her face peeped through her fingers. 

Polly was enchanted. “ Oh, you adorable 
little duck, you ! ” she cried, dropping down on 


IN THE PINE WOODS 283 


her knees before the go-cart. The baby, as a 
further proof of friendliness, held out her doll. 
“ She is pretty, isn't she? ” Polly remarked to 
the nurse as she danced the doll up and down 
and made it bow to little Lucy. “ I mean the 
baby, not the doll.” 

“ Everybody says she’s a remarkably beauti- 
ful child, ma’am.” 

Mary put in a question. “An’ where did 
Mrs. Stenton adopt her from? Was it from 
an asylum whatever, the blessed lamb? ” 

“ Oh, no, they say it was from somewhere 
down here. I’ve only been with her a few 
months. But this is the first time I’ve ever 
nursed an adopted child — my children have al- 
ways come from the best families.” 

Polly suppressed a smile at the nurse’s 
lofty air, and went on playing with the baby. 

“ Where are you going to take her? ” she 
asked as the nurse showed unmistakable signs 
of desiring to move on. 

“ Oh, down the road to that little summer- 
house there. It is away from the lake and 
there is a nice dry sandv place for Lucy to 
play.’’ 

Polly glanced at the rather lurid-looking 


284 


MARGERY MORRIS 


novel stuck in behind the cushions of the go- 
cart and guessed that little Lucy would have 
to amuse herself. 

Margery roused as Polly and Mary came 
up the steps. “ Zat ze baby? ” she muttered 
sleepily. 

Polly laughed. “ Yes, ‘ zat ze baby,’ old 
sleepy head. I’m glad that nurse is going to 
take her to the little summer-house and not 
near the lake. There’s a novel sticking up 
back of the cushions of the go-cart, and I know 
that nurse is just the kind that will be so ab- 
sorbed in reading that she will forget all about 
the baby.” 

“ I wish I had something to read my- 
self.” 

“All right. I’ll go and get you something. 
Which will you have. Treasure Island, or Miss 
Stanley’s biographical dictionary?” 

“ Treasure Island. I feel too lazy to hunt 
‘ pearls and oysters ’ to-day — even if Ada does 
get ahead of me.” 

“ I know she’s going to get ahead of me — 
but still I’m going to make her work.” 

A light little breeze sprang up and whis- 
pered through the pine-trees. “ It’s clouding 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


285 


over, Polly. I believe we are going to have 
rain. Perhaps I’d better be going home.” 

“ Oh, no, wait a while and I’ll lend you my 
raincoat and overshoes if it rains.” 

The girls went on with their reading and 
Margery was just setting sail for the Treasure 
Island when someone near her asked anxiously: 

“ Oh, have you seen little Lucy? ” 

Margery peeped over the side of the ham- 
mock. The nurse, her face as white as her 
stiffly starched apron, was standing in the path 
by the porch. 

The baby? Why, no, I haven’t seen her! 
Have you, Polly? ” 

Polly got up and went to the veranda rail- 
ing. “ How do you mean? Haven’t you got 
the baby with you? ” 

‘‘ No, ma’am. I — I looked down just for 
a minute, and when I looked up again I 
couldn’t see her nowheres. And she had been 
right before my eyes just that very second! ” 

‘‘ Did you call her? ” 

“ Yes, ma’am. I’ve called and called, and 
I’ve looked everywhere. I thought maybe she 
had run back here to see you.” 

The nurse began to whimper. “ Oh, what 


286 


MARGERY MORRIS 


shall I do? If she’s lost I don’t know what 
Mrs. Stenton will do to me! ” 

Margery slipped out of the hammock. 
“ Come on, Polly. We’ll have to go and look 
for her.” 

Polly looked searchingly at the book the 
woman still held in her hand. “ Have you any 
idea how long you were ‘ looking down ’ at that 
book? ” 

“ No — no, ma’am. But it wasn’t long.” 

“ Polly,” Margery asked anxiously, “ you 
don’t suppose that the baby could have fallen 
into the lake, do you? ” 

Frightened, the nurse began to cry, and tried 
to hide the book under her apron. 

“ Come on, Margery, we’ll have to go down 
to the summer-house and see if we can find 
her. Come on ! ” 

Together they ran down the path to the 
summer-house in the little clearing beyond. A 
thick hedge of bushes hid it from the house, and 
on the other side there was a grove of low- 
growing trees between it and what was known 
as the “ back road.” 

They skirted the bushes, calling “Lucy! 
Lucy!” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 287 


No little piping voice answered. 

“ Lucy ! Lucy ! Where are you, dear? ” 

“ It was right here that I was sitting — and 
she was playing right there in front of me as 
good as gold.” 

“Lucy! Lucy!” 

“An’ I just looked down for a second ! And 
when I looked up she was gone! ” 

“ Perhaps she’s hiding,” suggested Margery, 
peeping under every bush. 

“ She couldn’t have crawled under the sum- 
mer-house, could she, and got caught? ” and 
Polly threw herself down on the ground to 
peer under the little rustic building. “ No, 
she isn’t there.” 

“ You don’t suppose, do you, Polly, that she 
can have wandered off by the lake? ” 

“ I’ll go and see if there is any trace of her 
and you can look through the grove there.” 

The ground was soft and muddy near the 
lake and any footprints would have showed 
distinctly. “ She hasn’t been there, I’m sure,” 
Polly reported with relief, as she came back to 
the summer-house. “ There isn’t the sign of 
a footprint, and I’m sure the marks of even 
her tiny feet would be there.” 


288 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Polly, what’s that? ” 

“ What? ” said Polly. 

“ That! That white thing over there! ” 
With Polly close behind her, Margery made 
her way through the undergrowth of the little 
grove to something white that was lying near 
its outer edge. 

“ It’s her doll — Polly, it’s her doll! ” 

The doll lay huddled on its face, one arm 
pathetically outstretched. 

“ She’s been here, Margery — that’s evident. 
Oh, that careless woman not to have watched 
her!” 

“ She must have got through here to the 
back road. Well, anyway, she can’t have gone 
far. She’s probably down the road some- 
where. Lucy ! Oh, Lucy ! ” 

‘‘Yes, her fat little legs can’t have taken her 
very far. You go that way and I’ll go this. 
Perhaps we’ll catch up to her.” 

There were a few houses clustered along the 
road, mainly the homes of the various em- 
ployees of the Inn and the two large boarding- 
houses. At each of the little cottages, Mar- 
gery stopped to inquire if they had seen a lit- 
tle girl. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 289 


‘‘No, I ain’t seen a soul,” a woman, leaning 
over the gate of one of the yards, assured her, 
“ and I’ve bin waitin’ here quite a spell for my 
little girl. I sent her to the store for some 
yeast and I’m waitin’ for her to come back. 
The little girl you’re after must have gone the 
other way.” 

Margery turned back. Perhaps Polly had 
already found little Lucy and it would be well 
not to get too far away. As she drew near the 
edge of the grove she saw Polly coming to- 
ward her waving her arm violently. Margery 
ran forward. 

“ Have you found her? ” she called. 

“ No, but the little girl back there says she 
has seen her.” 

“ Where? ” 

“ This child here,” and Polly indicated a for- 
lorn-looking girl who trailed along after her, 
“ says she saw a woman carrying a baby that 
sounded from the description like Lucy. They 
were going in that direction. The baby was 
crying hard.” 

Margery stopped and took a long breath. 
“ Perhaps she found the baby and saw she was 
frightened and lost.” 


290 


MARGERY MORRIS 


‘‘ Yes, but why did she take her in that 
direction, instead of taking her to the Inn or 
some of the cottages? I should think that she 
could tell by her clothes that she belonged 
there.” 

Margery glanced warningly toward the girl, 
who was plainly all ears. “ Perhaps she was 
going in that direction anyway and just took 
Lucy along. Do you know where this road 
leads to? ” 

“ Yes, it takes us past the Buccis’.” 

“ We’d better go along then. Perhaps Mrs. 
Bucci might have seen her.” 

They walked as rapidly as they could, 
stopping to ask everyone that they met if a 
woman carrying a child had been seen that 
way. 

“ No’m,” was the answer given, curtly, curi- 
ously, or indifferently, as the case might be. 

‘‘ If another person says ‘ no’m,’ I shall 
yell,” Margery cried at length. “ Do you sup- 
pose that child was telling the truth? ” 

They turned to look at the girl, who still fol- 
lowed them at a discreet distance. 

“ She spoke as though she were,” Polly in- 
sisted. “ Thank goodness, there’s the Buccis’ 


IN THE PINE WOODS 291 

now. And there is Mrs. Bucci sitting on the 
steps.” 

A turn in the road brought them close to the 
little house of the Buccis’. A group of women 
were clustered about the steps where Mrs. 
Bucci sat enthroned like a tragedy queen. At 
the sight of the two girls she went through her 
usual ceremony of throwing her apron over her 
head and bursting into tears. 

“ Oh, dear, Polly — she thinks we have come 
to bring her some more money — she goes 
through this performance every time Mother 
goes near her.” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Bucci,” Polly questioned eagerly, 
paying no attention to the signals of grief. 
“ Have you seen a woman and a baby — a little 
girl of about three? ” 

Mrs. Bucci lowered a corner of the apron. 
“ I ain’t seen nobody,” she wailed. 

“ Nobody,” echoed the women. 

Sure you haven’t seen anyone? ” Margery 
insisted. “ Please tell us if you have. We’re 
looking for a little girl that has run 
away.” 

A younger woman drew near from the outer 
fringe of the group. “ I seen da woman,” she 


292 


MARGERY MORRIS 


said with a flash of pretty white teeth. She 
go to the clothing settlement.” 

“ Oh, thank you so much. Come, Margery, 
we had better go on then.” 

“ Why do you suppose all those women were 
there? ” asked Margery. 

“ Oh, just gossiping. They talk, and 
talk.” 

Margery was silent. The hasty walk had 
tired her and she began to worry as to how she 
was going to go further. Yet she felt that she 
must not desert Polly. 

“ Where are you going, Polly? ” she fal- 
tered. 

“ Why, to the clothing settlement, of course. 
Did you hear that girl say she saw the woman 
going in that direction? It was probably 
someone who lives there and who had found 
Lucy.” 

“ Do you suppose we have to go there — 
couldn’t we go back to the Inn and get a cab, 
or send somebody? ” 

“ Oh, you blessed chicken! Of course 
you’re tired out. I forgot that you’re not 
strong now. Do you think that you can walk 
back to the lake? ” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 293 


“ I’m — I’m pretty tired. But of course we 
ought to get Lucy.” 

“We ought to make that awful nurse find 
her,” Polly said wrathfully. “ I hope Mrs. 
Stenton gives her an awful lecture.” 

She locfked searchingly at Margery. “ You 
do look ti *ed,” she said. “ I wonder how we’ll 
get you back to the lake. It’s rather a walk 
yet.” 

She stopped and thought, tapping her lips 
with her finger. Margery sat down on the 
grassy bank of the road. A rickety old car- 
riage drawn by an ancient white horse came 
down the road toward them. 

“ Oh, hello, Mike,” Polly called to the boy 
driver. “ Have you seen a woman or a baby? ” 

Mike grinned and shook his head. 

“ Mike, can you drive us back to the lake? ” 

Mike shook his head again. “ My father he 
wants me right away to help him,” he grinned. 

Polly put her hand on the wheel. “ I tell 
you what we’ll do — -you go and help your 
father, and let me have this horse and car- 
riage.” She felt she would prefer the carriage 
without Mike. 

Mike found her idea an excellent joke. 


294 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ I mean it. Your father knows who I am. 
He serves vegetables to my mother at Pine 
Cottage. If you tell him that I promise to 
pay him well, it will be all right. Got any 
money, Marge? ” 

Margery searched through her sweater 
pockets. “ Here’s seventy-five cents,” she 
said. “ Oh, wait a minute — here’s another 
quarter.” 

“ There, Mike, there’s a dollar. That’s 
more than that old rattle-trap is worth an hour. 
Now tell your father that you know me at 
school and that it is all right. You can come 
to Pine Cottage for it in an hour, or I’ll bring 
it to you.” 

Looking rather dazed, the boy climbed down 
and handed the reins to Polly. 

“ My father, he’ll beat me,” he grinned. 

“ No, he won’t. Tell him Mrs. Morris’s 
daughter was tired out, and that we’ll pay him 
extra if necessary. Come on, Margery, I’m 
going to drive you home. But we’ll stop at 
the clothing settlement first.” 


CHAPTER XX 


THROUGH THE WOODS 

“ Well, I’m glad that we didn’t attempt to 
walk it,” Margery remarked after they had 
gone along some time in anxious silence. “ It 
seems to me that it takes forever for us to get 
there. Are you sure that you know the right 
way to go? ” 

“ I don’t know exactly the way, but I know 
it’s out this road somewhere.” 

“ I don’t believe that Ada and the others 
walk this far to school every day!” 

“ Oh, they don’t come this way — they take a 
short cut through the woods. That takes off a 
mile or two, I guess. But it’s a narrow path, 
I know, and even if we knew the way we 
couldn’t take a carriage through there.” 

The road grew narrower and began to wind 
through the woods. 

“ I don’t believe that this is the right way, 
Polly. It would be awfully easy to be lost in 
these woods.” 


295 


296 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Wouldn’t it though! But I’m sure we’re 
right this time. I think, though, that we have 
taken the roundabout way — there’s a shorter 
road, I’m sure. We’ll take that going back.” 

The woods grew denser, and in spite of the 
brave front she showed, Polly began to be wor- 
ried. “ If we don’t find that settlement pretty 
soon, we’ll have to turn around and go back. 
Perhaps they have found the baby playing 
peacefully about the cottage, anyway.” 

“ I believe that we are off on a wild-goose 
chase! Oh, there are some houses! — See! I 
can just catch a glimpse of them through the 
trees.” 

Polly was relieved. “ I certainly am glad 
to get somewhere at last. But I don’t be- 
lieve that we will find little Lucy here. For 
if that woman carrying the child had been com- 
ing here — unless she had taken the other road — 
we would have passed her long ago.” 

“ Still, as we are here, we might as well ask. 
I don’t believe in leaving a stone unturned — 
when you turn it over so easily.” 

They drove past several comfortable little 
homes, and a long low building that was evi- 
dently the clothing factory. From several of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


297 


the houses came the sound of a victrola, but no 
one seemed to be about, except a couple of 
children who waved delightedly when they 
recognized Polly, but who only stared when she 
asked them if they had seen a woman carrying 
a baby. 

“ It seems so silly to knock at any of these 
doors and ask them if they have seen little 
Lucy. I wonder if we ought to do it. Oh, 
look, Polly, there are some people on the porch 
of that house down there. We might ask 
them.” 

There was a noisy group on the front porch 
of the largest of the houses, evidently, to judge 
from the wildly flourished hands and excited 
voices, in the midst of an argument. 

Polly stopped in front of the gate and Mar- 
gery, although she volunteered to get out and 
ask the members of the group if they had hap- 
pened to see little Lucy, felt somewhat hesi- 
tant. 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, one foot out over the 
wheel, “why, there’s Ada! Ada,” she called. 
“ Oh, come here a moment, I want to speak to 
you.” 

Reluctantly, Ada left the group and came 


298 


MARGERY MORRIS 


down the path to the gate. “ What-y-want? ” 
she asked indifferently. 

“ Oh, Ada, have you seen a woman and a 
little girl — a baby, really, of about three? Mrs. 
Stenton’s adopted baby is lost, and we can’t 
find her. Someone told us on the back road at 
the lake that she had seen a woman carrying 
a baby that must have been little Lucy. We’ve 
traced her in this direction. Have you seen 
her?” 

Ada looked startled. “ Mrs. Stenton’s 
little girl lost? ” she exclaimed. “ Little 
Lucy? No,” she said decidedly, “ no, I haven’t 
seen her. No, I don’t know nothing about it! 
You needn’t come asking me! ” 

“ I supposed we were on a wild-goose chase,” 
Polly said, gathering up the reins. “ I think 
we had better get back. Perhaps they have 
found her.” 

“ It took us forever to get here, Ada,” Mar- 
gery added. “ Isn’t there a shorter way to get 
back to the lake? ” 

“ Of course. You’re right near the lake. 
You came on the road from the Buccis’ — 
that’s the long road. There’s a quick way 
right through the woods. You go around back 


IN THE PINE WOODS 299 


of that building there — that’s the factory — and 
you’ll see another road that looks as though it 
hadn’t been travelled very much. Turn down 
that to the right, and then turn down the first 
road to the left and that brings you right out 
by the lake.” 

“ Straight down the crooked lane and 
all around the square,” laughed Margery. 
“ Thank you, Ada. Do you know, Polly, I’m 
sure that we’ll find Lucy when we get back. 
I think we just got rather hysterical. I think 
we had better hurry back or they’ll be worried 
about us! ” 

“ Yes, indeed. Well, we’ll be back in about 
fifteen minutes, if it takes us even that long.” 

They jogged down the narrow leafy lane as 
fast as the old horse could be persuaded to go. 
“ It’s going to rain, too,” Polly exclaimed. 
“ I felt a drop on my cheek. Hurry, old 
dear,” — ^to the horse. 

“ Polly,” Margery suddenly exclaimed, 
“ did it seem queer to you that Ada seemed to 
know who Mrs. Stenton is, and that the baby’s 
name is Lucy? ” 

“That’s so! How do you suppose she 
knew? Unless she just takes a great interest 


300 


MARGERY MORRIS 


in all our affairs. You know how ‘ nosey,’ as 
Deborah used to call it, some people are.” 

“ How soon do you suppose do we come to 
that road toward the lake? Oh, there it is. 
Don’t forget to turn down, Polly.” 

Polly turned the horse into another and nar- 
rower road. The rain was spattering down 
now on the leafy greenness around them. 

“ I’m glad that we have on our coats and 
tarns — it’s only a shower, though.” 

“ Polly, did Ada say turn to the right or 
left?” 

“ She said the left first,” answered Polly, 
confidently, “ and then to the right.” 

“ I was rather thinking it was the other way, 
and wondering if we ought to have come down 
this road.” 

‘‘No, I’m sure we’re right. And see, there’s 
the road to the right ahead of us. We’ll turn 
down that.” 

Had their minds been less on getting back 
to Pine Cottage, the girls would have thrilled 
to the beauty of the woods, now misty green in 
the softly falling rain. On each side of them 
stretched great masses of pink and white 
laurel, and in the open places was the blue of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 


301 


lupin. The air was filled with cool, wet 
woodsy smells, mingled with the sweet fern 
and the haunting perfume of magnolia and 
wild grape. A veery added his wild sweet 
notes to the music of the pattering raindrops. 

Margery turned up her coat collar. “ It 
seems to me it takes a long time to get to the 
lake,” she remarked. 

“ Yes,” Polly answered anxiously. “ I’m 
afraid that you’ll take cold. But we ought to 
be there any minute. Remember how we 
never thought we’d get to the settlement.” 

They jogged along in silence. It seemed 
rather lonely and eerie in the woods, and both 
girls felt that they would be glad when they 
were safely home. By this time they were 
both persuaded that little Lucy had been 
found. 

“ Oh, there’s some houses. We’re almost 
home now. It won’t take a minute now to get 
to the cottage,” cried Margery, delightedly 
pointing to some buildings they could see 
through the trees. 

“ Thank goodness,” breathed Polly. I 
really was getting a little worried.” 

She touched up the old horse with the frayed 


302 MARGERY MORRIS 

whip. “ This must be the part of Pine Lake 
that lies back of the Inn,” she observed. “ IVe 
never seen it before. We’ll stop in at the Inn 
to get an umbrella.” 

They passed a tumble-down house or two, 
then came abruptly into a settlement. There 
was a public square with a weather-beaten cast- 
iron statue in the center, faced by a store with 
broken porch and gaping windows. Beyond 
stood a mansion, tall weeds in its front yard, 
and a hawk perched in one of its broken fire- 
blackened windows. On the opposite side of 
the square twenty or thirty houses were scat- 
tered along two small streets, houses with fall- 
ing chimneys and glassless windows. There 
was not a sound save the falling of the rain and 
the hoof -beats of the horse. 

“ Polly,” Margery gasped, “ there isn’t any- 
body about.” 

Polly laughed rather tremulously. “ It’s a 
deserted village,” she said. “ I’ve heard of it. 
Don’t be scared. We’ll just have to go back 
to the clothing settlement and get Ada to show 
us the way to the lake.” 

She drove around the square, past the 
mouldering houses, the empty windows of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 303 

which seemed like horrible sightless eyes, back 
to the woodland road. 

“As soon as we come to the crossroads we’ll 
have a better road and not these awful old tree- 
roots to go over — then we can go faster. So 
cheer up, Marge,” Polly comforted. “ Wasn’t 
that deserted village scary? I’ve heard of it 
before. There was a glass factory or some- 
thing there, and the owner lived in that big 
house where that bird was perched on the win- 
dow-frame like some awful bird of ill-omen in 
a story. The owner failed and moved away, 
and the whole village finally was deserted. 
But we’re not very far from home, so we’ll be 
all right. I hope you’re not damp enough 
from the rain to take cold.” 

“ Oh, no, it hasn’t gone through this heavy 
coat. Don’t worry, I’m all right.” 

But they drove along in silence after that, 
both too anxious to feel much like talking. It 
stopped raining, but the day grew darker and 
the woods seemed to close in tighter about 
them. 

“Polly,” said Margery at last, “where’s 
that crossroads where we turn?” 

“ I don’t understand why it takes so long to 


304 


MARGERY MORRIS 


come to it myself. Whoa ! Whoa ! ’’ The 
horse had shied at a rabbit. 

On and on they drove. The birds grew 
silent, and there was no sound but the sighing 
of the wind in the trees, the footfalls of the 
horse, and the creaking of the old harness. 

“ Polly, where is that crossroads? Besides, 
look! We didn’t pass that before!” 

In front of them was a black and gloomy 
swamp, where giant old gum-trees reared their 
dead limbs. At the sound of the carriage 
there was a harsh rasping cry and a great 
heron spread wide gray wings and rose from 
the marsh. 

“ Margery — I’ve been afraid to tell you! I 
don’t know where we are. We’re lost! ” 


CHAPTER XXI 


THE EMPTY HUT 

The girls turned white and frightened faces 
toward each other. 

“What shall we do?” asked Margery 
breathlessly. 

Polly settled back with a long sigh, her 
hands with the reins lying limply in her lap. 
“ There’s nothing to do,” she said. “ We’ll 
just have to keep on. Just follow this road. 
Perhaps after a while we may come to a house, 
or we’ll come out of the woods or some- 
thing.” 

“ We must have turned away from the lake 
instead of going toward it,” said Margery, 
struggling to keep her lips from trembling. 
“ Well, I suppose that some day we may think 
this a killing adventure — but it doesn’t seem 
quite so funny now.” 

On and on they drove through the long 
305 


306 MARGERY MORRIS 

spring dusk. The character of the woods 
seemed to change, the trees grew taller, and 
there was less underbrush. 

It grew darker and an owl hooted. 

Margery tried to laugh. “ I do hate owls in 
woods,” she faltered. 

“ Margery,” Polly exclaimed suddenly, 
“ look, there’s a house ahead! See! ” 

As they drew near Margery held her breath. 
Might not a house, and people, be worse than 
the deserted woods? What menace did it 
hold? 

But the house was empty. 

“ I wonder,” said Polly, doubtfully. 

“ I wonder,” Margery took up her words, 
“ if we hadn’t better stop here. It’s getting 
darker every minute. And we can’t go on 
driving all night. Hadn’t we better take 
shelter? ” 

A broken-down table on which a dusty cup 
was standing was all the furniture in the one 
small room that comprised the first floor of the 
hut. In one corner lay a pile of empty sacks. 
The roof was broken and through it Margery 
could see the evening star. 

“ Wouldn’t it be awful,” Margery thought. 


IN THE PINE WOODS 307 


more frightened by the unkempt place than 
by the clean and empty woods, mysterious 
though they were, “ if this were a robber den? 
But we simply can’t go wandering on all 
night.” 

The horse was carefully backed into the 
thicket and tied, and the girls brought the 
moth-eaten cushion from the carriage, and 
putting it in the corner sat on it with their 
backs against the wall. 

“ There’s nothing to do but to wait until 
morning,” said Polly. 

“ It’s pretty cold,” shivered Margery. 

It grew darker. Blackness crept in and 
filled the corners of the room with dread. Out- 
side the breeze died away and there was noth- 
ing to break the stillness but the occasional 
sound of the horse pawing the ground or jerk- 
ing at the rope that tied him to the tree. 

Suddenly they heard a long, rasping rustle 
in the grass and dead leaves outside the door. 
They started and gripped each other with icy 
hands. Slowly the rustling seemed to pass 
the door and be lost in the forest. 

It was a snake, I think,” breathed Polly. 

Silence settled down again, and the girls 


308 MARGERY MORRIS 

crouched closer together. “Whippoorwill,” 
called a bird from the thicket. 

It grew colder, and the dampness seemed to 
creep in about them. Margery’s throat ached 
and she felt chilled to the bone. 

The moon rose, and shining in at the door, 
made the corners blacker than ever. Again 
there was a rustling outside, low, furtive, as 
though someone with infinite caution were 
stealing closer, closer. Margery pressed her 
knuckles against her lips to keep from crying 
out. 

“ It’s only a mouse, I think,” whispered 
Polly. 

That sound, too, passed away into the forest, 
and becoming half accustomed to their strange 
surroundings, the girls grew drowsy. Sud- 
denly Margery sat upright and gripped Polly’s 
arm. 

Something was coming toward them through 
the bushes. They could hear the snapping of 
twigs, and the sound of slow, cautious foot- 
steps on the dry leaves. The horse whinnied. 

“ It is something, Margery, it is ! ” 

Slowly the door pushed open, and something 
long and brown crept in and darted toward 


IN THE PINE WOODS 309 


them. With a scream the girls sprang to their 
feet. Its eyes blazing in the moonlight, the 
animal stopped and snarled. 

Polly seized the cushion and with it struck 
at the animal. Still snarling, the creature re- 
treated. 

Again she struck, and again, and again it re- 
treated. 

Suddenly it whirled and dashed through the 
doonvay. 

Faintly, Polly closed the door and leaned 
against it. “I don’t know which is worse,” 
she faltered, “ to be shut up in the darkness 
here, or to have all sorts of things wander- 
ing in.” 

“ They are only woods things,” said Mar- 
gery bravely. “ That was a weasel, I sup- 
pose, or a marten. Perhaps its home is in 
here.” 

They put the cushion down again. “ Slip 
off your coat, Margie,” suggested Polly, as she 
sank down in the corner. ‘‘ I’ve read some- 
where that if you wrap a coat over you it’s 
warmer than if you wear it.” 

“ We’ll sit very close together, and spread 
both our coats over us.” 


310 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Clasped in each other’s arms and with the 
coats over them, they grew rather more com- 
fortable. Their weary young frames relaxed 
and they slipped off into sleep. 

When Margery woke the little cabin was 
filled with a grayish light. For a moment she 
sat dazed, wondering where she was and what 
had happened. 

“ Oh,” she exclaimed, “ oh! ” 

She stretched her cramped arms. “ Polly,” 
she ordered, “ wake up I It’s morning.” 

Polly opened her eyes. “ What’s the mat- 
ter? ” she asked indifferently. “ Oh! ” 

“ It’s morning now. Don’t you think that 
we had better start now? We’ve simply got 
to keep on until we get to some kind of a settle- 
ment! They’ll be frantic about us at home.” 

Stiff from their sleep in a cramped position, 
the girls got up and opened the door. 

There was a faint rosy glow in the east and 
the birds were twittering. A white mist hung 
in the hollows, and the air was damp and chill. 

“ The sun will be up before long,” said 
Polly, drawing her coat tighter about her. 
“ So we might as well start now.” 

Margery swayed a little and caught hold of 


IN THE PINE WOODS 311 


a bush for support. She felt faint from cold 
and hunger. 

“Yes. Let’s start right away. We may 
not be so awfully far from the lake — and I’m 
terribly hungry. And I just don’t care to 
think how Mother is worrying.” 

They crossed the half-obliterated road to the 
thicket where they had fastened the horse. 

“ Margery,” asked Polly with an anxious 
frown, “ wasn’t this the place where we tied 
that horse? ” 

“ I thought it was. But it was pretty dark. 
It must have been further on.” 

They pushed on, the underbrush tearing at 
their hair and slapping in their faces. 

At length they turned and stared at each 
other with frightened eyes. 

The horse was gone. 


CHAPTER XXII 


LOST 

“ Well,” said Polly, weakly, “ I suppose 
we’ll have to walk.” 

“ That old horse is so slow that we may 
catch up to him,” returned Margery. She 
glanced again at Polly’s downcast face and 
suddenly went into peals of laughter. Lean- 
ing against a pine sapling she laughed until the 
tears rolled down her cheeks. 

Polly seized her by one slender shoulder and 
shook her. “ Margery, stop it,” she com- 
manded. “ You’re getting hysterical.” 

“ Well, it is funny,” Margery defended her- 
self. 

/ 

Her laughter stopping as suddenly as it had 
begun, Margery wiped her eyes and crashed 
through the undergrowth back to the narrow 
road. 

“ It’s all so silly,” she said faintly. “ It 
seems like some weird nightmare. First the 
312 


IN THE PINE WOODS 313 


man stealing that ladder night before last. 
And then Lucy lost. And then our getting 
that old horse, and being lost. And that awful 
weasel thing! And now the horse is gone!” 

At the thought, Margery threatened to go 
off into peals of laughter again. 

“ Come on,” Polly said abruptly, seizing 
Margery by the arm. “We can’t stand here 
giggling all day. We’ll have to start. It’s 
no use going back the way we came, either. 
We’ll just have to push on.” 

“ Perhaps we’ll find the horse — he may have 
wandered into some thicket farther back from 
the road.” 

“ Not with the carriage,” declared Polly 
briefly. 

The faint rosy glow in the east had changed 
to brilliant scarlet and yellow, and a few min- 
utes later they could see the sun between the 
tall black trunks of the pine-trees, a great 
crimson ball. The white mist lifted, and the 
sun shining on the drops left hanging on every 
twig and delicate green leaf turned them to 
jewels. The air grew less chill, and was filled 
with all the sweet wood fragrances. The birds 
twittered and called, and from a low bush near 


314 MARGERY MORRIS 

them a song-sparrow suddenly burst into a 
wild sweet hymn of happiness. 

The sandy road skirted a silent cedar-water 
stream, and the girls stojDped to drink of its 
clear, slightly pungent water and to bathe their 
faces and hands. 

“ If only we could find some berries or some- 
thing to eat,” sighed Polly. “ But I suppose 
that it is too early for anything yet. I’m so 
hungiy ! ” 

“ So am I.” 

They plodded on, trying to hide from each 
other their utter dismay. The pine-needles 
covering the sandy road made it slippery, and 
here and there, where a little stream would 
overflow, it was boggy and they would have to 
make a wide detour. Once they had difficulty 
in finding the road again and wandered breath- 
lessly through the thickets, their hands and 
faces stabbed by the sharp points of the holly 
leaves and the barbs of the greenbrier that 
twined itself over everything. 

“ There are fresh hoof-prints here,” said 
Margery, stopping to look at one of the 
swampy places in the road. “ That old horse 
must have come this way.” 


IN THE PINE WOODS 315 


** Anyway, this road must have been used 
some time and lead somewhere or it wouldn’t 
exist at all. That’s a comfort.” 

Courageously they plodded on, following 
the road which grew narrower and rougher. 
Margery found herself getting tired beyond 
measure. Her back and head ached, her eyes 
throbbed, she felt chilled and faint from lack 
of food. The tears came very near the sur- 
face, but she choked them back bravely, lest 
Polly should see and be disheartened. 

Polly, striding along ahead of her, suddenly 
seemed to her to be hard and indifferent. 

“ She’s strong and well, and she’s not feel- 
ing exhausted, or even thinking that I may be,” 
she thought, too tired to take a normal view. 

To comfort herself and bolster her own cour- 
age she said aloud: 

“ Perhaps we are very near the lake, and are 
just wandering around it in a circle. I’ve 
heard of people wandering about all night 
when they were really only ten yards from 
their homes and didn’t know it.” 

“ That’s when people are lost in blizzards 
and can’t see because of the snow.” 

How queer Polly’s voice sounded, Margeiy 


316 


MARGERY MORRIS 


thought. She ran a few steps forward and 
caught up to Polly. 

“ Why, Polly, you’re crying! We mustn’t 
give in yet. Perhaps we aren’t nearly as 
much lost as we think we are! ” 

“ It’s — it’s just that I’ve got you in this 
scrape. And you’ll go and take cold and die ! 
And your mother will be worried to death! 
and I know Mother is frantic — she has so 
much, it seems too bad she should have this 
fresh trouble.” 

Margery summoned all her composure. 
The thought of her mother’s anxiety was al- 
most more than she could bear. “ I’m not go- 
ing to die,” she declared emphatically. “ But 
I am going to sit down and rest for a few min- 
utes. So are you ! I’m used up.” 

They sat down on a bed of brilliant green 
moss under a giant old pine-tree. Near them 
a tiny stream crooned over the tree-roots that 
ridged its bed, and a tall sweet-bay, crowned 
with waxy white fragrant blossoms, swayed in 
the light breeze. A scarlet tanager perched 
on one of the branches, brilliant against the 
gray-green leaves. 

Margery turned her eyes from it indiffer- 


IN THE PINE WOODS 317 


ently. “ To think/’ she sighed, “ that there 
are people who have had beefsteak for break- 
fast/’ 

“Yes, and I suppose that there are lots of 
times when we have had beefsteak and haven’t 
cared about it, other people were starving. I 
suppose there are lots of people often just as 
hungry as we are now.” 

For the first time in their lives hunger had 
become a real and vital thing. 

“ That’s what makes Ada so bitter some- 
times, perhaps. She had known people who 
were really hungry.” 

They got to their feet and went on. They 
walked more slowly now and every step seemed 
an effort. Margery’s knees trembled so that 
she could scarcely stand, and Polly’s heart 
seemed to her to be sticking in her throat. By 
the position of the sun they knew that it must 
be nearing noon, and the fear clutched them 
both that night might again overtake them be- 
fore they were out of the woods. 

“ Margery,” Polly faced Margery bravely, 
“ I don’t want to worry you. But this road 
is growing narrower and narrower, and I’m 
horribly afraid that it is going to stop all to- 


318 


MARGERY MORRIS 


gether pretty soon. But perhaps we’ll find 
a crossroads.” 

Margery squared her shoulders and took a 
long breath. “ Polly, there is nothing to do 
but to be brave and keep on. If we turned 
around and went back we wouldn’t be any 
better off. Don’t you remember the story of 
the two frogs that fell into a pail of milk? 
One gave in and was drowned, the other kicked 
and kicked. Finally his kicking churned the 
milk to butter and he hopped out. We’ll have 
to be like that frog.” 

Polly sighed, half in admiration, half in 
utter fatigue. 

“ You always were a plucky little thing,” 
she said. 

They went on again in silence, too tired to 
waste their breath in speech. 

The road wound on through monotonous 
woodland. Once they thought that they were 
coming out into the open country, but it 
proved to be only a waste place where fire had 
swept. Again they thought that they heard 
the sound of voices, but it was only crows caw- 
ing in some old dead gum-trees in a swamp. 

“ Polly,” Margery cried at last, “ I’ll have 


IN THE PINE WOODS 819 


to sit down and rest again. I feel so queer. 
Here’s a log where we can rest.” 

They threw themselves down, and Polly 
took off her shoe. “ There’s a pebble in it,” 
she explained. 

“Polly! What’s that? Don’t you hear 
something? ” 

“ Oh, it’s just some more crows.” 

“ No. It’s something coming! ” 

From far away they could hear voices and 
the creak of wagon wheels in need of oiling. 

“ Someone is coming! Oh, Polly, thank 
goodness ! ” 

But Polly drew Margery down behind a 
thickly flowering laurel bush. “We don’t 
know who they may be,” she whispered. “ I’ve 
been scared to death for fear we might meet 
some gypsies, or something like that ! ” 

The voices grew nearer and they could hear 
the thud of a horse’s hoofs on the sandy road. 

Suddenly Margery raised her head. 

“ It’s Ada! I hear her voice! Ada! ” she 
cried, running out in front of the approaching 
wagon. “ Oh, Ada! ” 

There was an answering cry, and Ada 
sprang down from the seat beside the driver. 


320 


MARGERY MORRIS 


“ Oh, Margery, weVe been looking for you 
almost all night! Where have you been? 
And your mother is so frightened 1 ” 

“ I don’t know,” Margery answered, rather 
wildly, “ weVe been so far, and the horse got 
untied and got away! And, oh, Ada, I’m so 
hungry.” 

Polly leaned limply against the wagon- 
wheel. “ If you were angels we couldn’t be 
any gladder to see you,” she said. 

‘‘We hunt and hunt for you,” said the boy 
who was driving. 

Polly looked up at him. “ Why — ^why, 
you’re Angelo Bucci ! ” 

The boy laughed and jumped down. 
“ Here,” he said, picking Margery up as 
though she were a child, and plumping her 
down into the wagon, “ you girls can sit on the 
back seat.” 

“Are you hungry? ” asked Ada, giving 
Polly a boost. 

Polly paused with one foot on the hub of the 
wheel. “ We’re starved.” 

Ada held out a huge, battered piece of bread 
and butter. “ Saved that in case we found 
you.” And Margery and Polly, fastidious as 


IN THE PINE WOODS 321 


they were, took it and divided it between them 
thankfully. 

“ Your mothers is awful scared,” said Ada 
as Angelo Bucci backed the wagon into the 
bushes and turned it round. “And — and,” 
she hesitated, evidently disliking to express her 
feelings, “ I was too.” 

“ Oh, please hurry,” Margery urged the boy, 
“ I want to get home as soon as I can and let 
Mother know that we’re all right. Are we 
far from home? ” 

“ Pretty far,” Ada answered. “ You must 
have taken the wrong turn. You didn’t go the 
way like I told you to, or else you wouldn’t 
have been lost.” 

“And Lucy?” put in Polly. “Did they 
find Lucy? ” 

Ada’s sallow face turned crimson and she 
bit her lip. 

“ Yes,” she answered in a low voice. “ Yes, 
they found her yesterday.” 

Angelo Bucci turned and faced them 
squarely. “ She,” with a jerk of his thumb 
toward Ada, “ made him take her back.” 

“ Made who? ” 

“ My fadder.” 


322 MARGERY MORRIS 

“ Your father? What had he to do with it? 
He’s away, anyway.” 

“ He came back.” 

“ Lucy is Angelo’s cousin,” Ada put in. 

“Angelo’s cousin? ” 

“ My fadder he gave Lucia to Mrs. Sten- 
ton.” 

“ Oh,” said Margery blankly. She was so 
utterly thankful just to sit still and rest and 
feel that she was going nearer to her mother 
with every step of the horse that it was 
hard for her to quite grasp what was being 
said. 

“ She was the baby of my aunt who died,” 
Angelo went on. “And then she come,” jerk- 
ing his thumb at Ada, “ and she tell my mudder 
all the time that it was a wicked thing to give 
Lucia to Mrs. Stenton. My mudder, she’s 
silly,” he added with startling frankness, “ she’s 
awful silly, and she believe her.” 

“ But why,” Polly interrupted, “ shouldn’t 
Mrs. Stenton adopt Lucy? ” 

“ She’s rich. And Ada she tell my mudder 
that the rich always make a slave of the poor, 
and that she’ll kill little Lucia’s soul. My 
fadder and I, we tell her different, but she 


IN THE PINE WOODS 323 

would not believe us, she believes Ada all the 
time.” 

Neither Polly nor Margery made any com- 
ment. They knew poor, silly, stupid Mrs. 
Bucci, and they knew that Ada had all the 
gifts of persuasion and suggestion of the born 
agitator. They knew, too, something of her 
restless malice and desire for excitement. 

“And then we have trouble and my fadder 
he does not have enough shoes to mend to pay 
the rent. And then my mudder she thinks it 
is a curse because we give Lucia to Mrs. Sten- 
ton.” 

“ Oh, Ada,” exclaimed Polly, “ how could 
you make her think that? ” 

“ Mr. Bucci cheated my father over a pair 
of shoes,” answered Ada sullenly. 

“ Oh, Ada,” Margery cried indignantly, 
“ how could you be so revengeful? ” 

Ada hung her head and made no answer. 

But the Bucci boy was too much interested 
in the story of his own troubles to pay any at- 
tention to Ada or to the girls’ attitude toward 
her. 

“And my mudder she talked and talked all 
the time to my fadder that it was a curse until 


324 


MARGERY MORRIS 


he get mad and go away. Then we were worse 
off than before.'' 

“And then," Ada cut in, eager to justify 
herself, “when he had stolen little Lucy, I 
knew where he was and I made my father go 
to him and tell him that he would have the 
police and the bloodhounds put after him if he 
did not take Lucy back right away to Mrs. 
Stenton. And he did. But if it had not been 
for me he would have taken little Lucy to the 
woods and hidden her, and he would have made 
Mrs. Stenton give him money, but he would 
not have given her Lucy." 

Angelo demurred. “ My f adder he’s hon- 
est," he protested. “ He just get mad at my 
mudder." 

Margery and Polly were silent. It was hard 
for them to grasp the meaning of the drama 
that had been played about them. 

Suddenly Polly leaned forward and put her 
hand on Ada’s arm. 

“Ada," she demanded, “ do you know if he 
tried to get Lucy before? If he tried to climb 
up to her room with a ladder and get her that 
way? ’’ 

“ Yes, and you poured water on him. And 


IN THE PINE WOODS 325 


when you were lost in the woods, I was afraid 
that he had paid you back some way.” 

Angelo protested again. “ My fadder he’s 
honest,” he declared angrily. 

They turned down a crossroads and a few 
minutes later had come out at the far end of 
the lake. 

Margery looked at its waters shining in the 
warm spring sunshine. ‘‘ I had begun to 
think that we were never going to see that 
again,” she said softly. 

Pollj^ laughed. She was radiantly happy 
now. In a few minutes more she would see 
her mother, little Lucy was safe, and the ad- 
venture in the woods, now that it was tri- 
umphantly over, seemed almost an experience 
worth having. “We were much nearer home 
than we thought. We would have got here 
after a while, if we had just kept on. That 
certainly shows the advantages of keeping 
on!” 

Far down the road they could see two figures 
standing with their hands over their eyes as 
they gazed into the distance. 

“ Oh, Polly, it’s our mothers ! They are 
waiting. They don’t know we are coming.” 


326 


MARGERY MORRIS 


Margery stood up, and holding on to Ada’s 
shoulder, waved violently. 

Faint from excitement and lack of food, a 
mist rose blackly before her eyes. 

“ You mustn’t faint,” she scolded herself. 
“ You mustn’t! ” 

Suddenly the shoulder against which she 
leaned seemed to slip from her grasp and there 
was a stifled exclamation. The mist cleared 
and she leaned over the front seat to see what 
had happened. 

Ada had fainted. 



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V 




CHAPTER XXIII 


THE LAST EVENING 

The old white boat belonging to the Inn was 
laden with boys and girls and wild flowers. 
Margery, perched in the bow, had almost disap- 
peared behind masses of fragrant wild honey- 
suckle, gorgeous Turk’s cap lilies, and tall 
cinnamon fern. In the stern, Polly and 
Esther held between them a basket fllled with 
fragrant white water-lilies, and at their feet 
was another basket of delicate ferns and the 
odd pale-emerald and deep russet flowers of 
the pitcher-plant. 

Margery, leaning from the bow, caught a 
water-lily by its stem, plucked it, and deftly 
tossed it over the heads of Dick and Sam at 
the oars, to the girls in the stern. 

“ Did you ever see so many lilies? ” she ex- 
claimed. “ Think of all that we will have to 
take home to Renwyck’s Town ! ” 

Dick turned to look at her. “ You look 
327 


328 


MARGERY MORRIS 


like a queen of the May with all those flower 
things about you/* 

“ It certainly will be a case of ‘ call me 
early. Mother dear,’ ” she laughed. “ Do you 
realize that we start for Renwyck’s Town to- 
morrow at half-past seven? Home again! 
Think of it! ” 

It was her last afternoon at Pine Lake. 
Dick and Sam, with Esther and Deborah 
Davis, had motored over from Renwyck’s 
Town and were staying at the Inn. When 
they went back the next morning, Margery 
and her mother were to go with them. 

“ To think that our stay here is over. In 
some ways I’ll be sorry to leave this,” and 
Margery nodded at the gleaming water-lilies 
spread on either side of the boat and the tall 
pine-trees that almost encircled the little cove 
into which they had drifted. 

“ Tell us some more about Ada,” suggested 
Esther. 

They had been speaking earlier of the night 
Polly and Margery had been lost in the woods, 
and of how Ada had searched for them. 

“ There isn’t much more to tell,” Margery 
said, “ except that she really seems to have 


IN THE PINE WOODS 329 


been terribly upset over her part in the steal- 
ing of little Lucy. And she was frightened 
to death for fear that the Bucci man had re- 
venged himself on us.” 

They all laughed as they thought of Mar- 
gery’s encounter with Angelo’s father. 

“ He certainly must have been surprised 
when the water came down on his head,” Dick 
commented. 

“And did Ada really faint? ” asked Esther. 
“ That seems hard to believe! ” 

“ She really did,” Polly assured her, look- 
ing up from the pitcher-plant she had been 
examining. “ She had been thoroughly 
frightened and upset over the whole thing, 
you know.” 

“ She is such an intense creature,” Mar- 
gery explained. “ She feels everything so. 
Grandpapa has taken quite an interest in her. 
He says such a person is bound to be a force 
either for good or bad. And she certainly 
does have a wonderful influence over the other 
girls and boys. He wants to help her to be a 
force for good, so he had offered to give her 
whatever education she wants.” 

“ She really seems to be fond of Margery,” 


330 MARGERY MORRIS 

Polly remarked, “and anxious to please 
her.” 

“ She counts us in with the ‘ rich ’ that she is 
always denouncing,” laughed Margery, “ and 
I think that it is something of a shock to her to 
discover that we’re just like other people. She 
felt all Americans were some queer sort of cold- 
blooded monsters whose chief pleasure was 
tormenting poor foreigners.” 

“ I wonder what kind of a paper she will 
read to-night,” said Dick. 

Margery reached for another water-lily. 
“ I do hope,” she said anxiously, “ that it will 
be something that will help to make the others 
good Americans. She has such an influence 
over them ! ” 

There was to be a community party at the 
schoolhouse that evening. Through Mr. 
Beacon’s interest and efforts the schoolhouse 
had been repainted and papered, and made into 
a pleasant cheerful place that could serve as a 
community club-house after school hours. The 
fathers and mothers of the young students, and 
the members of the school board and their 
wives were to be there at the party, and Mrs. 
Morris had kept her promise, made half in jest 


IN THE PINE WOODS 331 


on the day of the trip to Philadelphia, to offer 
a prize for the best paper on patriotism. The 
papers were to be read that evening and the 
prize awarded. 

“ I don't believe that Ada will say anything 
very bitter,” said Polly. “ When she won the 
prize for finding the names of the most people 
who had achieved success in spite of obstacles, 
and Mrs. Morris asked her what book she 
wanted, she chose a life of Lincoln. I don't 
believe that anybody can go very far wrong 
who tries to live up to Lincoln.” 

“ My string of beads isn’t nearly as long as 
Ada’s,” said Margery to Polly later in the 
afternoon. “ But it means a lot to me.” She 
touched each bead softly as she counted. 
“ Lincoln, Louisa Alcott, Beethoven, Prescott, 
Heine, Pope, Pascal, Helen Keller, all of them 
have fought through some sorrow or drawback. 
Doesn’t that make you feel humble, lady? It 
does me.” 

She crossed the room to Polly, who was 
standing by the window looking out at the lake, 
and put her arm about her shoulders. To- 
gether they stood silently watching the length- 
ening shadows of the pine-trees as they crept 


332 


MARGERY MORRIS 


across the lake. In a week or two, Polly and 
her mother would follow the Morrises back to 
Renwyck’s Town. Anxiety had lifted from 
their lives; Mrs. Jameson had been persuaded 
by Mrs. Stenton to become chaperone in her 
famous school in New York, and Polly had 
been given a scholarship there. 

Margery broke the silence. “ Isn’t it won- 
derful,” she said, giving Polly’s shoulder a 
tighter grip, “ to think that we’ll be together 
next winter, too ! I’m so glad that Mother has 
decided to send me to Mrs. Stenton’s school 
that I don’t know what to do.” 

“ Do you remember, old lady, how discour- 
aged we were a while ago? It seemed as 
though you’d never get well and strong, and 
thought I’d be stuck down here for the rest of 
my natural life. And now you’re well! 
Wasn’t it funny the way you seemed to get 
well all at once? ” 

“And the way has opened for you to be at 
school and still with your mother. And then, 
you know, Grandpapa is going to give a 
scholarship to Westover College and you are 
to have it for the first four years.” 

Polly sighed. “ It seems almost too good to 


IN THE PINE WOODS 333 

be true. And Miss Stanley — do you remem- 
ber how I detested her at first? — has sent some 
of my nature stories for tiny children to an 
editor she knows, and she thinks she can get 
me some writing of that kind to do.” 

“ Oh, Polly ! How perfect ! Doesn’t it just 
show that if you keep on walking long enough 
you’ll get out of the woods sometime? ” 

They turned for a final look at the lake 
and the setting sun behind the pine-trees, then 
they went down-stairs to join the others. 

The schoolhouse was already filled when the 
party from the Inn arrived. Angelo’s parents 
were there and Ada’s, very proud and smiling, 
and Rosa Bonini, slipping her hand into Mar- 
gery’s, pointed proudly to a pretty little 
woman as “ me mudder.” 

“ Do you know, Esther,” Margery whis- 
pered, “ I have an idea that Ada is going to get 
the prize. Oh, Esther, there comes Mr. 
Beacon! Where’s Deborah? Quick.” 

She linked her arm with Deborah’s and drew 
her forward. “ Mr. Beacon,” she said, trying 
to be calm and dignified, “ I want you to meet 
a very dear friend of ours. Miss Davis. We 
think it would be so nice if you and she and 


334 


MARGERY MORRIS 


our friend Dick Ball would act as judges for 
the papers on patriotism.” 

There was a low, “ Why, George Beacon! ” 
and a delighted, “Well, Debby!” and Mar- 
gery slipped away, her face beaming. 

The judges were conducted to the platform, 
and Margery and Polly, laughing to see Dick’s 
expression of annoyed perplexity at the honor 
thrust upon him, took their places between 
Mrs. Morris and Esther. 

Bosa Bonini mounted the platform and com- 
menced to read her paper in her soft sweet 
voice. Margery was dimly conscious that it 
was a tribute to the flag. “ My flag is the 
American flag. It was born in freedom and 
honor, and I must always try to guard its 
honor, and help it to stand for freedom.” But 
it was too absorbing to watch Deborah’s sweet 
face, with its expression of gentle happiness, 
and Mr. Beacon’s smiling countenance, brim- 
ful of delight. 

“ I know Rosa’s paper is good; Polly helped 
her,” she whispered to Esther. “ But I just 
can’t listen! Do look at Deborah and Mr. 
Beacon!” 

Rosa finished and sat down, and Margery 


IN THE PINE WOODS 335 


applauded as enthusiastically as though she 
had heard every word. 

There was a stir in the room, and Margery 
saw that Ada was moving toward the platform. 
She carried her head high and there was a flush 
on her usually sallow cheeks. 

Margery sat forward in her chair, tense. 
She glanced at Dick; he, too, was watching 
Ada intently. A queer little thrill passed over 
her and she gripped Polly’s hand. 

What was Ada going to say? Would she 
spell discouragement for them; prove to them 
that they lacked the power to show her what 
was best and most beautiful of America? 

Ada stepped to the front of the platform. 
“ Ladies, and gentlemen, and schoolmates,” she 
began formally, “ I have not prepared a paper 
to read to you.” 

She stopped. Margery sighed, disappointed. 

“ But,” Ada went on with a reassuring nod 
to Margery, “ I am going to recite to you the 
oath of loyalty which long ago the youths of 
the great city of Athens gave to it. It was 
this: 

“ ‘ We will never bring disgrace to this our 
city, by any act of dishonesty or cowardice, nor 


336 


MARGERY MORRIS 


ever desert our comrades ; we will fight for the 
ideals and sacred things of this city, both alone 
and with the many; we will revere and obey 
city laws, and do our best to incite a like respect 
in others ; we will strive unceasingly to quicken 
the public’s sense of civic duty ; that thus in all 
these ways, we may transmit this city, greater 
and more beautiful than it was transmitted to 
us.’ ” 

She stopped again and there was silence in 
the little building. She stepped nearer the 
front of the platform, and again she looked at 
Margery. 

“And now,” she said slowly and clearly, “ it 
is for us who are Americans to so serve Amer- 
ica and obey its laws, that we may transmit it 
greater and more beautiful than it was trans- 
mitted to us.” 


The Stories in this Series are : 

MARGERY MORRIS 
MARGERY MORRIS—MASCOT 
MARGERY MORRIS AND PLAIN JANE 
MARGERY MORRIS IN THE PINE WOODS 









